FATIMA College’s Zachary Siewah and Barrackpore East’s Amrita Ramtahal were crowned 2024 boys’ premiership and girls’ open players of the year at the PowerGen Secondary Schools Cricket League (SSCL) awards at Signature Hall in Chaguanas on June 25.
Siewah was the division’s most outstanding batter with his mammoth haul of 483 runs, while Ramtahal also topped her division with 298 runs.
Additionally, Asja San Fernando’s Ubaidullah Abdoel was adjudged championship player of the year. Abdoel also captured the division’s all-rounder of the year courtesy his 191 runs and 18 wickets.
Also in the premiership, Naparima College’s Matthew Copper took home the most outstanding bowler award (20 wickets) and Vishnu Boys’ Andrew Rambaran (396 runs and 17 wickets) was named best all-rounder.
[caption id="attachment_1092406" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Barrackpore East Secondary School's Abigail Boodoo receives trophies from former West Indies leg-spinner Samuel Badree for the Girls' U-16 division during the Secondary Schools' Cricket League awards and prize giving ceremony at Signature Hall, Chaguanas, on Tuesday. - Photo by Ayanna Kinsale[/caption]
In the girls’ open, Ramtahal’s teammate Abigail Boodoo (12 wickets) took the top bowling prize while Keira Superville of open second-place finisher Rio Claro West Secondary (141 runs and seven wickets) copped the best all-rounder.
The boys' championship division saw Toco Secondary’s Zakilon Beckles (242 runs) earn the most outstanding batter while Trinity East’s Johanson Gajadhar (22 wickets) was adjudged the top bowler.
Delivering the feature address at the awards was two-time T20 World Cup winner with the West Indies and former world number one T20I bowler Samuel Badree.
Badree spoke to the student-athletes about his struggles coming up through the ranks as a young cricketer, who eventually went on to become one of the most feared spin bowlers internationally.
“Beware of people who belittle your ambitions. Small people tend to do that and the really great people make you feel that you too can become great,” he said.
Badree, a former PowerGen player, told the youngsters that he never played youth cricket for TT or West Indies, as he was overlooked twice at the Under-19 level, and then also at the senior level.
His omission brought on “despair, desperation and frustration,” but he persisted “because my aspiration was to play for the maroon.”
Despite winning the Caribbean T20 with TT, and still getting the snub from West Indies selectors, Badree kept working on his craft.
“In 2012, after they (WI selectors) tried every single spinner in the region, finally, they gave me an opportunity. As fate would have it in 2012, I made the T20 World Cup team and we won our T20 World Cup first title.”
"In 2016, again, I was part of the T20 World Cup team that won our second T20 title. During that period, I rose from obscurity from being a country boy in Barrackpore from a single-parent home to becoming the number one T20 bowler in the world.
[caption id="attachmen
