The?Falkland Islands cricket team will be heading to the Caribbean next month for some friendly matches with local teams.
The squad will be making stops in Barbados, Belize and Jamaica.
Craig Paice, who will be captain of the team on the Barbados leg of the tour, said that while new to the Caribbean weather, they were ready to deal with the challenges.
Paice, along with David Hewitt, Alex Pearce and Ian Betts, met with six Caribbean journalists on a one-week visit to The Falkland Islands, ahead of the tour.
The team will be in Barbados from November 29 until December 3, but the details of matches are still to be worked out.
The team is in training, and Paice said they had already been given useful tips by former Barbados and West Indies Under-19 cricketer Wendell Coppin.
The cricketers said that while they tried to play at least once a week, this could be challenging during the winter months as it was more difficult to train.
Paice said their aim was to keep raising the profile of cricket in The Falkland Islands and trying to get more juniors involved. He also said they were trying to maintain their International Cricket Council (ICC) status as an affiliate member.
“We are trying to get new people into the game,” said Paice, who was spokesman for the group.
“In the early 1930s and 1940s, cricket was a very popular game here, even up to the 1960s. Then in the early 1990s, a few cricket enthusiasts got together and played what they called The Falkland Nationals. A team from Stanley used to play a team from Mount Pleasant, which is the base. In 2001, they applied to the ICC to get more funds and it slowly increased from there.”
He said in 2010 a team also went to Mexico and Costa Rica.
While on tour, the cricket team will be working with some charities in the respective islands. In Barbados, they have chosen the Irving Wilson School for the hearing impaired.
