Junior Village World Cup celebrates Barramundis

CRICKET Papua New Guinea (CPNG) and PNG-Aus Partnership hosted the Junior Village World Cup on Saturday to celebrate the historic participation of the Kumul Petroleum Papua New Guinea Barramundis in the Twenty-20 World Cup in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The one-day event at Amini Park, Port Moresby, saw Under-13 boys and U15 girls from six cricket villages representing the countries of the World Cup.
CPNG general manager Tony Naidu told The National that the idea was to support the Barramundis by re-creating the World Cup with village teams.
“Last weekend, we had the senior teams, but this weekend was our favourite because it’s the first time we’ve brought U13 boys and U15 girls out to play at Amini Park,” Naidu said.
“It allows children to dream and we’ve seen future Barramundis and Lewas out there today.
“It might not look like they’re stars today, but they’re going to have a dream and a belief that they can come out here and play.
“It’s exciting to have the youth of PNG playing and celebrating the World Cup at the home of cricket.”
Naidu said the original idea was to bring players from other cricket associations around the country, however, due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions, they couldn’t do that.
“Our original idea was that this was going to be country wide where we bring teams from all the different provinces, but we had to adjust (due to Covid-19),” the general manager said.
“We would love to bring players from Lae, Alotau and other places. Unfortunately, with all the restrictions, we couldn’t do all that.
“We’ve got some of the kids of the Barramundis playing and (some of their siblings).
“I’ve got people coming up to me and telling me that this player came from my village and honestly the excitement and the love of cricket, it’s village deep.”
Naidu said he had already discussed the concept of village cricket with associations, including Lae and Kimbe, in the coming week to have them roll out the programme.
“This is a pathway, it’s principles of cricket that get people engaged, whether it’s the youth today or formers Barramundis and Lewas playing,” he said.
“Leading up to the Lewas’ qualifiers in Zimbabwe, we’re going to have U19 boys and girls participate in the Village World Cup.
“We’re going to replicate the teams playing in the World Cup qualifiers against the Lewas.
“Once schools finish, we’ll have the same format out here just celebrating our national teams, celebrating that we are part of the cricket world now.”