Dozens of less fortunate cricketers, drawn from cricket clubs across the Berbice coastline and Linden, would benefit shortly from the Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club (RHT&SC)/Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) organised Basil Butcher Memorial Project.
The project has been organised in memory of the late West Indies batting legend, who died last year at the age of 86 years in Florida, USA, and was later buried in his home village of Port Mourant in Berbice.
Secretary/CEO of the RHTY&SC, MS, Hilbert Foster, who is also the President of the BCB, stated that 87 young cricketers would receive one piece of cricket gear as both organisations join hands with the Butcher Family to honour the legend on September 3, his birth anniversary.
“The cricket gear to be shared out over the course of the next month would include helmets, batting pads, batting gloves, wicketkeeping gloves and wicket keeping pads. The project would also include the distribution of bicycles, school bags to less fortunate students and scorebooks to cricket clubs in the Lower Corentyne sub-district,” Foster said.
A total of 550 food hampers has already been distributed out of a projected one thousand in what Foster described as the first in many tribute projects to honour outstanding Berbice players.
Members of the Butcher family, led by his widow Pam Butcher, have given their blessings to the project and are actively assisting via the setting of a GoFundMe account in the USA.
Butcher eldest child, Keith Foster, is the President of the RHTY&SC and served as President of the BCB between 2007 and 2014.
The RHTY&SC Secretary/CEO stated that 10 of the youth cricketers would be from his club, while the others would be selected based on the recommendations of clubs across Berbice.
Great effort, he stated, would be made to ensure all five sub-associations benefit under the project. The sub-associations are Upper Corentyne, Central/ Lower Corentyne, New Amsterdam/Canje, Berbice River and West Berbice.
Butcher made his Test debut on November 28, 1958, in India and became the fourth Berbician to play Test cricket after John Trim, Rohan Kanhai and Ivan Madray. He played 44 Test matches, scoring 3,104 runs at an average of 43.11 with seven centuries and sixteen half-centuries.
Butcher went on to serve Guyana and the West Indies as an administrator and was solely responsible for the development of the game in his adopted hometown of Linden.
Foster is encouraging cricket clubs in Berbice and Linden to nominate youth cricketers, so that they can benefit. Nominations can be made to the RHTY&SC and BCB Facebook accounts or by calling 337-4562 or email at foster_hilbert@yahoo.com.
