CENTURY OF CRICKET IN COSTA RICA
Cricket is the national sport of Great Britain and has been played for 400 years. It has been dominated by countries with historical British ties: England, West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Cricket’s World Cup dates from 1975, last won by Australia in the West Indies in 2007, and Women’s World Cup since 1973, won by England in 2009. Cricket is the second most played and watched sport in the world. It has been played in Costa Rica since the end of the Nineteenth Century. In the late 1870s, construction began on the railway between the port of Limon on the Atlantic coast and San José in the Central Valley, and a significant number of Jamaicans came to work in the country. They started playing Cricket later, both for recreation and to preserve their Caribbean culture.
The heyday of the sport was between 1910 and 1939 when there were 46 teams in the Province of Limon, connected by United Fruit’s railway. In 1930, a West Indies team, including legends Learie Constantine and George Headley, played in Costa Rica on its way to Australia. During the 1930s teams from Limon went to play in Jamaica and matches were played against Bocas del Toro, Panama, and British Honduras, now Belize. In Kingston in 1936, in a historic event for Costa Rica Cricket, Lancelot Binns of Siquirres made 30 runs for Jamaica Schoolboys against the English professional team, Yorkshire, which included no less than eight English Test cricketers, the most famous being Len Hutton. Binns continued playing in Costa Rica until the age of 84. The Second World War almost finished off Cricket, and in 1942 the main Limon pitch became a hospital. Many of the Jamaicans’ descendants gave up playing the sport of their grandfathers in favour of football, partly in imitation of Pelé, and their own language for Spanish, looking to become more integrated into Costa Rican society. But Cricket in Costa Rica refused to die.
From 1970 until the end of the Century there were several attempts to revive Cricket, mostly among English expatriates in San José and a number of Limon stalwarts. Peter Lyon and Teofilus Foster arranged games at Estrada in 1973; the Cavaliers CC, with Ambassador Hamilton-Jones, beat a Royal Yacht team during HRH Prince Philip’s visit in 1975, and Costa Rica beat Nicaragua in 1976, both reported in La Nación. Matches were also played in 1970s in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Modern era CR Cricket restarted on the watch of Ambassador Daly and teams came to play from Panama (1986), Cayman Islands (1988), New Zealand (1993), California (2001). Costa Rica sides travelled to Panama and Nicaragua in 2002. A San José-Limon rivalry was maintained, with continuing patronage of the British Embassy.
Towards the end of 2000, a group of players formed Costa Rica Cricket Association (CRCA), later inscribed as Asociación Deportiva de Cricket in the National Registry, in 2003. Costa Rica became an Affiliate of the International Cricket Council (ICC), the global authority for the sport, in 2002. ICC has 105 member countries at three levels: Full (“Test”), Associate and Affiliate. There are eighteen members in the ICC Americas region: Full - West Indies; Associate - Argentina, Bermuda, Canada, Cayman Islands and USA; and Affiliate - Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Falkland Islands, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Surinam and Turks & Caicos. ICC Americas’ RDM Martin Vieira chose Costa Rica for the 2005 Development Forum, and later for Coaching, Umpiring & Scoring courses. ICC gave two CR volunteers Development awards (2004/05) and five Gold Medals for service to Cricket in its Centenary year (2009). In Cricket development, CR has received encouragement from the Costa Rica sports institute ICODER, a succession of British Ambassadors, schools, newspapers, broadcasters, television, hotels, restaurants, with corporate and private sponsors. Articles on Cricket in Costa Rica were published in England in The Cricketer (*) and Wisden Almanack, in the ICC Americas NewsFlash, and domestically in the Tico Times and national press. It is also featured regularly on the leading Cricket websites: www.iccamericas.com
In 2005, the first Costa Rica Cricket League was established with four teams, Limon, Corsairs, Raleigh and CCCCR, competing annually for the Lance Binns Cup. Costa Rica played in the First Central America Cricket Championships (CenAm) in Belize 2006, finishing in third place behind Belize and Mexico. In 2007, the Second CenAm was held in Mexico, which won, with CR second, ahead of El Salvador. The Third CenAm Championships were staged successfully in Costa Rica at the prestigious Los Reyes Polo Club grounds in April 2009. Panama, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica and El Salvador took part, finishing in that order. This event set a new standard for CenAm and was covered by Repretel TV, Radio Nacional and 99.5, La Nación, Al Día, La Republica, Tico Times and ICC Americas NewsFlash. Costa Rica received two tournament awards: Best Batsman (Shane Catford) and Spirit of Cricket (Sam Arthur). Recently, Costa Rica entered its first ever eligible team in an official one-day international tournament, the Pepsi World Cricket League ICC Americas Division IV, in Mexico City, against Mexico and Falkland Islands, from June 14-18th 2010. CR won one and lost three, coming second in one category and third in the other. Mexico became Champion, but CR’s Ben Smith was Best Batsman and MVP of the tournament.
In addition to these international events and principal teams, in its ongoing Cricket Development Costa Rica has been adding new clubs, including Women’s, and has broadened its schools programme, mainly in Limon, but also in the central valley. Since 2008, thanks to increased ICC funding, it has enjoyed the services of development officer Sam Arthur, originally from India. With active participation of Limon president Armando Foster and others, Cricket values have been promoted among boys and girls in eight Limon schools; also at the Roble Alto Home above Heredia, where Cricket was introduced in 2003 and is continued by sports director Gerardo Montiel. Their combined efforts have resulted in annual Under-19 schools Cricket tournaments played in Limon, competing in October 2008 and 2009 for the Standford Barton Cup, dedicated to that outstanding former president of Cricket Limon. A seminar on Introduction to Cricket & Coaching for Limon province male and female PE instructors was held in May 2009, and replicated in June 2010 as a four-day Seminar, backed by the Ministry of Education, for twenty PE instructors by ICC Americas Regional Development Officer, Wendell Coppin. These are very positive auguries for the future of Cricket in CR.
The Association´s status was upgraded to the Federación de Cricket (FEDECRIC), formed in November 2008, inscribed at the Registro in March 2009, and now Costa Rica’s official Cricket authority. Its two founding members were CRCA (Asociación Deportiva de Cricket) itself and CCCCR (Croquet & Cricket Association), subsequently joined by the Caribbean (December 2008) and Corsairs (June 2009) Cricket Associations, with equal standing. FEDECRIC started operations on July 28th 2009, holding its first General Meeting, and CRCA was wound up.
By Richard Illingworth, President, Federacion de Cricket, Costa Rica. Acknowledgements to T.A. Willasey-Wilsey
A Hundred Years of Costa Rican Cricket 1890-1990 – An Untold Chapter of Caribbean History, published April 1992 in The Cricketer magazine (Cricket Outposts) as Costa Rica: Playing Across The Lines (*).
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