FORGET the biting cold conditions that will have the ball swinging prodigiously, and the hard work which awaits them – Shane Dowrich and Randall Hoyte can’t wait to get to England.
The two Barbadian cricketers departed the island on Monday evening, bound for Lancashire, where they do stints with two English club teams for the next four months.
Through the collaborative efforts of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) and the Lancashire Cricket Board, Dowrich, 20, will be playing for first division side Sefton Park Cricket Club, while the 22-year-old Hoyte will represent Wavetree Cricket Club.
The diminutive Dowrich, Barbados’ first choice wicketkeeper and a competent batsman, plans to grab this latest opportunity with both hands, just as he has done in the past.
Along with representing Barbados at the junior and senior levels, he is also a product of the Sagicor West Indies High Performance Centre, as well as having played for both the West Indies Under-19 and “A” teams.
In 2010, he was also the recipient of the prestigious Lord Gavron Award.
“I am feeling good and I’m excited to be going,” he told MIDWEEKSPORT, while flanked by mother Sonia, father David and aunt Sandra at the Grantley Adams International Airport.
Good experience
“It will be a good experience, and I’m looking forward to playing in different conditions.
“In England the ball tends to swing a lot more, so I will be using the chance to sharpen my wicketkeeping skills as well as to improve my batting against the swinging ball,” the former Combermerian said.
He revealed that he hoped to develop his people skills as well, with the hopes of making the West Indies “A” team on returning to Barbados.
This stint couldn’t have come at a better time for Hoyte, a tall, muscularly built fast bowler, who admitted that he had recently contemplated giving up the sport.
He said that although he represented Barbados at the junior level, he didn’t think that his abilities were being recognized.
“I didn’t feel like I was going anywhere. I felt like I was stuck in a dead end,” he explained.
“But having been given this opportunity, it shows me that people have recognized that I have potential, and I am going to put my best foot forward, because I do not want to disappoint them or disappoint myself.
“I know it is going to be tough, and the conditions are going to be difficult, but I am going with the intention of taking as many wickets and scoring as many runs as possible,” the former student of St Leonard’s Boys’ said.
This will be the third year that Barbadians will be travelling to England as part of the arrangements between the two boards, with Rashidi Boucher and Miguel Cummins (2010) and Rachid O’Neal and Jomel Warrican (2011) having also benefited.
They will be accompanied on the trip by BCA board member Winston Stafford.
