Legendary cricket broadcaster, Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira, on the request of President Irfaan Ali, will conduct a workshop for cricket commentators from November 16-18 at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC). The three-day event will seek to cover the fundamentals of cricket commentary under the theme, ‘Taking it to another level.’
Among the areas to be covered are preparation, voice training, audience attentiveness and the significance of the match officials. Former Test player now international Match Referee, Reon King; Regional Umpire Shannon Crawford and international scorer Trevor Hussain are scheduled to make presentations on the opening day.
For the workshop, Perreira has secured discussion papers and notes from a number of cricket personalities in the Region, including former West Indies cricketers Richard ‘Prof’ Edwards and Michael Findlay along with contributions from Barbadian-born England batsman Roland Butcher, former Windward Islands and Combined Islands player Lockhart Sebastian, former Jamaica cricket administrator Pat Terrelonge, former Cricket West Indies Chief Executive Officer Bruce Aanensen, commentators Alexis Jordan, Colin Murray and Sunil Ramdeen and journalists Guyanese Tony McWatt and Trinidadian Nasser Khan.
‘Reds’ also acquired a written discussion that was put out by the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (Barbados) with inputs from the late Tony Cozier and journalist Adriel ‘Woody’ Richards. Additionally, contribution is expected from respected Caribbean journalist, Lance Whitakar.
Guyanese Perreira, who has called over 150 Test matches around the world in a career that spanned over five decades, will also use footage of matches to steer the knowledge sharing workshop.
The invitees are: Clyde Butts, Leon Johnson, Christopher Barnwell, Devendra Bishoo, Inderjeet Persaud, Neil Barry, John Ramsingh, Matthew Kissoon, Naim Chan, Steven Jacobs, Edwin Seeraj, Sean Devers, Jonathan Foo, Avenash Ramzan, Brandon Corlette, Shemroy Barrington, Jermaine Neblette, Lennox Cush, Brandon Bess, Akeem Greene and Andy Ramnarine.
Local media houses are invited to the opening session and may wish to utilise the services of the trainees thereafter. In fact, it is the hope of the facilitator, Perreira that radio stations add cricket coverage to their programming in 2024 and beyond.
‘Reds’ said, “It is important that after such a workshop that more opportunities are given for cricket reports from all three counties.”
The last cricket commentators’ workshop was conducted by ‘Reds’ for the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) in 1997.
Invitees may contact John Ramsingh via e-mail johnoramsingh@gmail.com or mobile number 592-664-3999 for additional details.
