PASSIONATE advocate for women’s rights and manager of the local blind cricket team, Theresa Pemberton, is not yet sure where the money will come from to send five women for a game in Barbados next month, but she is remaining confident that the funds will pour in.

The five Guyanese women, who are either blind or visually impaired, are expected to play on the West Indies Blind Cricket Team in a game against the English Blind Cricket Team in July.

So far, letters seeking help have been dispatched to various agencies including the National Sports Commission and the Ministry of Social Cohesion. The response from these organisations will indicate to the players whether they are going or not.
“We’re still scraping in. But you know me? By hook or crook we’ll go. We don’t give up,” Pemberton told this publication during an interview a few days ago. The game is scheduled for July 8 to 15.

In the meantime, the girls are practising at the Guyana Society for the Blind on High Street, and permission has been granted for them to practise at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence on Sundays.
Although the tour is said to be in limbo due to a lack of resources, executive member of the Blind Society, Ganesh Singh, hopes that something will be worked out. He, along with Kevin Douglas and Seon Mitchell, is conducting the training sessions with the girls.

If anyone wants to contribute to the trip, Singh can be reached on telephone number 652-8975; while Pemberton’s numbers are 670-3535 and -3175.
At the tournament, officials from the English team and other organisations will use the opportunity to train coaches and administrators for blind cricket. As such, two more persons who are visually impaired will be going for such training.

Nineteen-year-old Melieka Crawford and 20-year-old Ackila Smith are the two individuals who are expected to benefit from the training.
Meanwhile, the West Indies Blind Cricket Association is said to be having some ‘teething’ problems at the moment, with the stronger teams oftentimes trying to dictate how the organisation ought to be run.

“Some of the countries, they have this big boy, big girl attitude where blind cricket is concerned. They feel that what they say must go because they are the winners. This is the attitude they have around the place,” Pemberton expressed.
Like conventional cricket, some players lack loyalty to their country. “You find a lot of disgruntled players who want to go with the other countries and this brings a negative impact to blind cricket,” she said, adding that this is one of the issues that should be dealt with during the training.

“We have to stop telling ourselves that because we have more money as a Caribbean country, we are better than the rest,” she said. “Because they are the big players; for instance, Trinidad one year was sanctioned because they did not want to share the trophy with Jamaica; and some of them don’t want to participate because of the current president and all sorts of things. If we don’t put a grip on it and make some strong decisions and let them know this is where the buck stops, blind cricket will have problems.”

She added, “If we have weak persons within our structure at the top, we will have countries that want to dictate how the organisation should be run and it should not be that way. We are hoping that this spill-off of West Indies women will send out a strong warning to the regional teams that play blind cricket.”

Blind cricket is played with a hard plastic ball, a special ball that makes a very strong sound. The stumps are laid out like conventional cricket but without bails on them. The umpire usually guides the blind persons back to the stump, which they use as a gauge to bowl.

The bowlers bowl underhand style and when they are about to bowl, they ask: “Batsman, are you ready?” When the batsman replies in the affirmative, the bowler then says, “Play!”