LONDON – Former England captain Andrew Strauss says he is excited about the role he is playing in helping to develop cricket in St Lucia.
Strauss is involved in a cricket academy, founded recently, which will engage local coaches for summer training programmes specifically targeting youths interested in the game.
The academy is an outreach initiative of a new multi-million dollar eco resort being developed called the Freedom Bay Project in which Strauss has invested.
“It will help the locals to have some decent facilities and to play the game of cricket rather than basketball or some other game and hopefully see some players develop out of that as well,” said Strauss, one of England’s most successful captains after winning Ashes series at home and away.
“I have invested myself in the development. I am quite excited about having a property to go on out there on holiday to but I was also excited about the fact that they are setting up this academy.”
Strauss, who retired from professional cricket last year, also plans to assist young St Lucian cricketers with the development of important life skills such as teamwork, discipline, cooperation and to deal with disappointment.
Freedom Bay sits on 68 acres of a World Heritage site beneath the Piton mountains, and Strauss said the upgraded facilities in the area can only help to develop cricketers in the Caribbean.
“West Indies are not as lucky the way we are with their facilities,” Strauss said in a BBC television interview.
“The facilities there are way far more rudimentary than they are here and this is an opportunity for some of those young guys who don’t have many of those opportunities to get a bat and ball in their hands and play the game of cricket.”
Strauss has played international cricket in St Lucia on three occasions.
The US $300 million Freedom Bay Resort project is being built in three phases over a five-year period.
Other former England cricketers who bought properties in the Caribbean include Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff, who both own villas in Barbados. (CMC)
