To­ba­go’s crick­et com­mu­ni­ty has em­braced a new ini­tia­tive that ho­n­ours the late Earl Arthur, a ded­i­cat­ed ad­min­is­tra­tor and se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, while cre­at­ing greater op­por­tu­ni­ties for the sport’s de­vel­op­ment on the is­land.

Last week, the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) of­fi­cial­ly launched the Earl Arthur Memo­r­i­al Tour­na­ment at the Shaw Park Sports Com­plex in Scar­bor­ough. The tour­na­ment, named in ho­n­our of Arthur, a for­mer To­ba­go Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (TCA) of­fi­cial and TTCB Com­mit­tee mem­ber, is ex­pect­ed to strength­en lo­cal crick­et and pro­vide play­ers with more com­pet­i­tive op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Among those in at­ten­dance were TCA pres­i­dent Ker­win John, first vice pres­i­dent Mar­cus Daniel, sec­ond vice pres­i­dent Os­car Orr, and press of­fi­cer po­lice of­fi­cer Ar­nel Jones. Al­so present as a spe­cial guest was Dr Re­nee Arthur, daugh­ter of the late ad­min­is­tra­tor, who re­cent­ly ac­cept­ed a posthu­mous award on his be­half at the TTCB’s 2024 Na­tion­al Awards at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my.

TTCB pres­i­dent and Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) vice-pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath de­scribed Arthur as a larg­er-than-life fig­ure who left a last­ing lega­cy in To­ba­go’s crick­et­ing cir­cles.

“As you all know, Mr Arthur was an im­por­tant mem­ber of the TCA team, lend­ing his ex­per­tise, ad­min­is­tra­tive skills, and wide ex­pe­ri­ence to strength­en To­ba­go’s crick­et in­fra­struc­ture,” Bas­sarath said.

Af­ter re­tir­ing from the po­lice ser­vice, Arthur con­tin­ued his pub­lic ser­vice in To­ba­go’s health sec­tor while serv­ing as chair­man of the TTCB Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee, a role in which he was high­ly re­spect­ed.

The Earl Arthur Memo­r­i­al Tour­na­ment will be played on Wednes­day and Thurs­day evenings, fea­tur­ing sev­en clubs com­pet­ing in a 25-overs-per-team for­mat. The par­tic­i­pat­ing teams are Rox­bor­ough Strik­ers, Geor­gia Po­lice Youth Club, Scar­bor­ough/Ma­son Hall CC, Glad­i­a­tors, Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty, C&B Unit­ed, and To­ba­go Po­lice CC.

TCA pres­i­dent Ker­win John ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the TTCB for in­tro­duc­ing the tour­na­ment and high­light­ing its role in ex­pand­ing To­ba­go’s crick­et­ing cal­en­dar, which al­ready in­cludes the Two-Day League, T20, 40-overs, TCA T10, and the Dream XI To­ba­go T10 Blast.

He said the com­pe­ti­tion fills an im­por­tant gap for play­ers who rep­re­sent clubs in Trinidad’s Pre­mier League on week­ends, al­low­ing them to main­tain their com­pet­i­tive edge dur­ing the week in To­ba­go.

The tour­na­ment al­so of­fers at­trac­tive cash prizes, with John en­cour­ag­ing lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties to sup­port their clubs by at­tend­ing match­es.

Jones, the press of­fi­cer, thanked TTCB pres­i­dent Bas­sarath and ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the com­pe­ti­tion will be of a high stan­dard, align­ing well with the TCA’s on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme.

With the in­au­gur­al edi­tion of the Earl Arthur Memo­r­i­al Tour­na­ment now un­der­way, To­ba­go’s crick­et fra­ter­ni­ty is set to ben­e­fit from an ex­cit­ing new plat­form that ho­n­ours a re­mark­able con­trib­u­tor to the sport while fos­ter­ing growth and com­pet­i­tive play.