Bajan cricket experience for Argentines

Argentina’s Ambassador to Barbados Gustavo Pandiani has lauded the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) for accepting two young cricketers from his country on a seven-week training attachment.

  Pedro Arrighi and Ramiro Manuel Escobar are honing their cricket skills with Barbados Pride during training sessions at Kensington Oval under the watchful eyes of coaches Emmerson Trotman, Ryan Hinds and Vasbert Drakes. Their training attachment follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the BCA and the Argentine Cricket Association (ACA) in February this year.

“I am very happy to visit our two players at the Mecca of cricket in the Caribbean. Last year we had the opportunity to host your young footballers in Argentina, and for us it is a measure of pride to have two of our cricketers here. I hope their visit here will not only be a great experience in terms of sport but in terms of life also,” Pandiani told reporters at Kensington Oval Wednesday morning after watching Arrighi and Escobar going through their paces.

The ambassador expressed his gratitude to president of the BCA Conde Riley for the way the governing body of cricket in Barbados was helping the development of cricket in Argentina.

“We are helping Barbados with their football and we are receiving fantastic assistance with our cricket. We are looking forward to having more competitive cricket teams in Argentina and I think this is first step. I hope we will have more players coming next year. We are ready to work with the BCA and all of the stakeholders that are part of the family of cricket in Barbados,” Pandiani said.

Riley said after the BCA signed the memorandum they were committed to the exchange upon hearing about the agreement between the Barbados Football Association and the ruling body for football in Argentina.

“I know football is a very strong sport in Argentina and we are a strong territory in West Indies cricket. Several of our players are members of the West Indies team and one of them Jason Holder is the captain of the Test and ODI teams. We have a good cadre of coaches, two of them Vasbert Drakes and Ryan Hinds are past West Indies players. The training attachment is a good opportunity for these two young cricketers. We are looking forward to continue giving assistance to the ACA and by extension the whole of Argentina,” Riley said.

When asked how the Oval compared to the cricket ground back home Arrighi said: “This place is awesome and the coaches are fantastic, the training is hard. We are training twice a day but we are getting into it.”

Escobar said the Oval was amazing and training twice each day was a good experience. During their stay in Barbados the two cricketers are playing for Leeward Cricket Club.