Cricket is alive and growing within the public schools system but local sporting clubs have been remiss in their efforts to facilitate and aid in the development of the sport at the grassroots level.

Bermuda Cricket Board president Arnold Manders, who doubles as the Ministry of Education’s officer for physical education and health, decried as a myth that cricket had all but disappeared from school curriculums thus diminishing the game’s popularity.

Rather than the schools, which are not charged with creating and developing athletes, Manders feels those contributing to the stagnation were the very clubs that have the game as their calling cards.

“That’s where there is a fallacy, because you’re talking to the guy who is the educational officer for PE and health in schools and maybe we took a hit with Covid, but they play more cricket in the schools than that which is organised by the BCB,” explained Manders, a former Cup Match star with St George’s, key member of Western Stars Sports Club and teacher at The Berkeley Institute.

“We have 25 teams times ten, so that is 250 kids among the boys and for the girls I think it was 15 teams times ten, so that's 150 girls that played in a Super-8 League, where we did skills and drills before the tournament and then let them play friendly games among the girls.

“They play a league, usually west, central, east, but the problem is getting the club teams to play and that’s something we need to work with the clubs on.

“We had some youth cricket played this year, but we had to mix teams, like St George's and Cleveland, and Cleveland with some other teams. The only club that had a full team I believe was Somerset Cricket Club, so we have to do a better job as far as getting cricket played, not in the schools, but getting the clubs to become more involved with getting kids playing for their clubs.

“I believe we had more school teams than club teams, so that's something that we need to work on, but I always hear that they don’t play cricket in the schools and that’s completely false.

There is cricket in the schools and they play more games in the schools than they would with the Bermuda Cricket Board.”

Manders highlighted that physical education teachers are not often specialists in the game, with efforts being made to build closer relationships between coaches and teachers while encouraging clubs to adopt schools in their area.

“We're trying to get more cricket coaches in the schools during the day to assist teachers with running the cricket curriculum,” said Manders. “Also the BCB ran a clinic for them in October, for all the teachers, where we went through all of the skills and drills and instructed them for two days.

“So the Department of Education is doing its part as much as it can and it’s for the clubs to get involved more.”