The Falkland Islands cricket team will be visiting Barbados from 29 November to 3 December as part of a Caribbean tour, also taking in Jamaica and Belize.
The team will be playing matches against Barbados local sides, Isolation Cavaliers in St Andrew and North Stars in St Lucy at their home grounds, as well as matches against national squads in Belize and the Clarendon Masters and an invitational team in Jamaica.
The Falkland Islands is one of fourteen British Overseas Territories and has been continuously, peacefully and effectively inhabited and administered by Britain since 1833. The only exception to this was the brief illegal occupation by Argentine military forces in 1982. The islands have a land mass of 4,700 square miles and a population of around 3,000 people.
Although cricket has been played in the Falklands since the 1920’s, the Falkland Islands only became a member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) as recently as 2007 and played their first international tournament in June 2010 when they competed in the ICC Americas Championship in Mexico. Their historic opening fixture resulted in a victory over Costa Rica, with captain Elliott Taylforth claiming a hat trick.
The team has adopted an official charity for each leg of their Caribbean tour and team members have been raising funds to ensure that they can give something back to the communities that they visit. In Barbados the team are supporting the Irving Wilson School for blind, deaf and autistic children. A group of students and teachers from the school will attend the match against North Stars where School Principal Wilmont Straughn will present a trophy at the end of the match to the winning team and receive a cheque for the school from the visiting team.
In addition to the cricket matches, the team is looking forward to exploring Barbados and having an opportunity to enjoy its world famous beaches and tourist sites.
Speaking ahead of the visit, team captain Craig Paice said: “We’re really looking forward to visiting the Caribbean, a region with a rich cricketing heritage that has produced numerous world class players. We know that the standard of cricket will be very high but we’re excited about the challenge.”
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