The Keith Arthurton Cricket Academy, in collaboration with Island Bakeries of St. Kitts, on Saturday, June 24, 2017 hosted a ‘Fun Day’ from 10:30 a.m. at the E.T Willet Park, Charlestown, Nevis.
Members of the St. Kitts based club journeyed over to Nevis accompanied by former West Indian player Keith Arthurton himself, to engage in a few fun matches against the Nevis youngsters. More importantly, the young cricketers got to meet and question the great Elquemedo ‘Tonitto’ Willett MBE, the first person from the Leeward Islands to play on the West Indies Cricket Team.
According to Mr. Arthurton who is originally from Nevis, this was really the main purpose of the trip, to accommodate this meet and greet with Mr. Willet. However, the trip also served the secondary function of being a fun outing for the young cricketers.
“One purpose of the trip is a fun day for the kids. We run a cricket development back in St. Kitts called the Keith Arthurton Cricket Academy or the Keith Arthurton Cricket Center where we do a lot of development work.”
“We start from the age of 6 and go up to like fifteen /sixteen. What we do is that we try to teach them the fundamentals; the little basic things where they can have fun and understand the concept of how to bat, bowl and field,” he explained.
During the brief opening ceremony, Mr. Willett was introduced and the kids were invited to ask him questions about his experience playing cricket. Among them were questions about how many times he ‘got out’, the most runs he ever made and his best bowling figures.
In an interview with this media house following the ceremony, Mr. Arthurton highlighted the importance of Mr. Willett’s contribution to cricket. Arthurton noted that it was Willett ‘breaking the barrier’ that helped six other players from Nevis to likewise make it to the West Indies team. He also hoped that maybe one day soon, a player from St. Kitts could likewise break the barrier as so far, no Kittian has ever been drafted to play for the West Indies Cricket Team.
Further, Mr. Arthurton hoped that the day’s event would be the first of many to come that would help to make strides in the development of young cricketers throughout the Federation.