The former fast bowler Winston Benjamin, who played a fair bit of cricket for West Indies in the 90s and has got more than 100 international wickets to his name, has requested the big names of world cricket to help him with some cricketing equipment so that he can subsequently help the kids at the grassroots level in the Caribbean.
Benjamin is a coach these days and mainly works with the school kids in West Indies who want to make a career in the sport at the highest level, but he revealed that the problem with the kids in the Caribbean islands is not the lack of talent, it’s actually the lack of facilities.
The kids in that part of the world don’t get the facilities or the equipment that the kids in the other countries get at different age groups and that is currently an obstacle to the cricketing development of the kids in the Caribbean.
Former West Indies Pacer Winston Benjamin Asks For Help From Sachin Tendulkar pic.twitter.com/YkxjK25Rgu
— RVCJ Media (@RVCJ_FB) August 6, 2022
Grassroot cricket in West Indies needs investment: Winston Benjamin
Benjamin was talking to an Indian journalist Vimal Kumar who was recently on a tour of the West Indies to cover the matches of the Indian team. According to Benjamin, cricket has changed a lot in the sense there are plenty of platforms for young cricketers to showcase their potential and make a career, but those platforms don’t exist at the grassroots level. At the grassroots, it’s all about the development of the kids and it needs investment from the domestic boards.
While the cricket boards around the world have currently got stakes in their own domestic leagues, they get their share of the revenue generated by ICC from World Cups and Champions trophy as well. Apart from that, they also earn a certain fraction of the IPL salaries of their big cricketers as commission. But, not every cricket board in the world has a big broadcasting deal which automatically gives them enough funds to redirect a big part of it to their domestic structure.
After Benjamin’s video got viral, PUMA, which is one of the big brands in world sport, responded to it and immediately arranged some kits for Benjamin to help the kids whom he works with.
We hear you, Winston. Let’s get these kids padded up 🤝#WinstonBenjamin https://t.co/YxE13p5EyF
— PUMA Cricket (@pumacricket) August 12, 2022
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