POWERGEN SECONDARY SCHOOLS CRICKET LEAGUE
June 25th 2009

Talented allrounder Yannic Cariah was on Thursday named as the PowerGen Secondary Schools Cricket League 2009 ‘Cricketer of the Year’ at the annual presentation function held at the JFK Auditorium, University of the West Indies in St Augustine.

The 17-year-old El Dorado East Secondary School student who is a key member of the T&T Under-19 team, which will take part in the up-coming TCL West Indies Youth Challenge in Jamaica, copped the prestigious award ahead of U19 teammates skipper Yannick Ottley of Presentation College, Chaguanas and Sachin Boodram of Iere High School.

Ottley and Boodram were named among the five ‘Cricketers of the Year’ along with Duane Cockburn of Hillview College and Travis Karim of El Dorado East Secondary. Cariah tallied 461 runs for the season including two centuries with a highest score of 107 against St Mary’s College for an average of 65.85.

The right-arm leg-spinner also bagged 30 wickets for 241 runs, with best figures six wickets for five runs against St Mary’s College to end with the fantastic average of 8.2. In delivering her address to the distinguished gathering, Margaret-Ann Patino, Chief Communications Manager of PowerGen, noted that this is the 13th consecutive year that her organisation has been the official sponsor of the SSCL and it has now become an integral part of their corporate social responsibility.

“The PowerGen Secondary Schools League has now become a household name throughout T&T. We at PowerGen, see our sponsorship of this league as an opportunity to help with the overall development of the young people of our nation, since we always impress upon on the executive of the league, to include other non-cricketing components in the programme such as team building, leadership skills, handling difficult and challenging situations and many other similar type sessions,” Patino said.

She said that it has been heartening for PowerGen to see products of the SSCL making a name for themselves at both national and international levels, including Daren Ganga, Dwayne Bravo, Ravi Rampaul, Denesh Ramdin, Adrian Barath and Lendl Simmons. Forbes Persaud, CEO and General Secretary of the T&T Cricket Board thanked PowerGen for its continued support in the further development of the sport in T&T and by extension, the region.

He said that the SSCL has been making an extremely valuable contribution to cricket in T&T, and without it support cricket would have been in dire straits.

Persaud slammed the detractors who are opposed to the current administration (T&TCB) for the re-formation of the East and South-West Zone

“They brought all kinds of reasoning forward, why we should not bring the zones into being. At that time what we saw was a definite need for organised cricket in that area and we brought back the zones.

The results have shown that the East Zone has won every Interzone Youth tournament this past season. They captured the British Gas U-13, U-15, U-17 and U-19 titles, making a clean sweep in the age-group tournaments. Today we are very proud of the move,” Persaud said.

2009 Honour Roll:
National Winners

Girls Open
Runner-up - Coryal High School; Winner - Arima North Sec. School.

Boys U-14
Runner-up - El Dorado Sec.; Winner - Fatima College.

Boys U-16
Runner-up - Moruga Composite; Winner- Fatima College.

Seniors T20
Runner-up - San F’do Sec.; Winner- Vishnu Boys Hindu

Championship League
Runner-up - Hillview College; Winner - El Dorado Sec.

InterCol
Runner-up - Princes Town West Sec.; Winner - Presentation College, Chaguanas.

Forbes Persaud School of the Year - Fatima College.

Female Cricketers of the Year - Anita Harrinanan - Moruga Composite, Rachel Marcano - Arima North Seconday.

Male Cricketers of the Year - Sachin Boodram (Iere High), Duanne Cockburn (Hillview), Yannic Cariah (El Dorado), Yannick Ottley (Pres, Chaguanas), Travis Karim (El Dorado).

Cricketer of the Year - Yannic Cariah ( El Dorado).