–Cricketer/entrepreneur says uncontracted players will feel brunt of COVID-19

By Clifton Ross
IN the wake of the ongoing pandemic, local cricketer/entrepreneur Steven Jacobs said COVID-19 will most certainly hurt the uncontracted players, adding that he wants the younger crop of cricketers to focus on pursuing other endeavors outside of the game, to help lay a foundation for a life after sports.

Arguably the poster-child for what every cricketer should model himself after, Jacobs, one of Guyana’s most experienced all-rounders, was a key part of the Jaguars limited overs team for a long period of time before he was overlooked by the selectors.

A former West Indies Under-19 captain and skipper of the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) team during the 2014 Regional 4-Day season, the off-spinner has transitioned nicely from a regional cricket star with a University of West Indies (UWI) education to a successful businessman who has converted himself into one of the country’s leading jewellers.

In a recent interview with Chronicle Sport, the 31-year-old touched on a number of topics surrounding the recent state of sports due to COVID-19, as well as giving advice to his fellow teammates with regards to ensuring that they are able to feed their families without solely depending on cricket.

“It’s a very difficult time now with COVID-19; it will have terrible effects right across the board. In regular jobs, some people are being laid off; some salaries are being cut cause of how business is. So it’s not good because it will affect us in a major way economically”, Jacobs pointed out.

Despite the shroud of darkness hovering over the world of sports, the right-hander said that he felt some of the cricketers were safe from any near-future financial blows. Those players are the contracted ones who will receive monies from Cricket West Indies (CWI) either for their international or Professional Cricket League (PCL) bonds.

However, Jacobs believes that it is the younger players who will feel the brunt of COVID-19 as many of them are either on the pay-for-play basis, which means they are paid only when they represent Guyana or those who are now looking to break into the academy or the national team full-time.

“It hurts us (cricketers) tremendously, there are no games to play, no tournaments to go to, and this is how cricketers usually make their daily bread. The contracted players will still have something to help them through this time, but definitely I think it will have a strong impact on us”, Jacobs added.

The Malteenoes Sports Club player then gave some advice to the players, especially those who are now coming into their own professionally and financially. He believed that the wealth accumulated as a contemporary cricketer could easily allow players to branch off into being their own brand, thus ensuring their financial stability is, even in the midst of a crisis, still maintained.

“What I can do is advise cricketers that when things get back to normalcy, they think about doing something else while they are playing, so when times like this come they will have something to fall back on and something extra to help out in these situations”.

A stalwart in the T20 format, having represented the Guyana Amazon Warriors and Jamaica Tallawahs with much success in the Hero CPL tournament, Jacobs, who last played for the Jaguars national team in 2017, was one of the primary spin weapons and a good batsman before selectors opted to try other pieces in the team.

Despite his hiatus from the Jags team, Jacobs, who has remained fit and has played in other tournaments locally and regionally since then, including the CPL, confirmed that he’s not retired from cricket but rather just been dropped from the national team.

Nevertheless, the off-break spinner was adamant that as a professional athlete, one needs to make preparations for a life after sports, identifying saving money as one of the key aspects to a successful post-cricket or sports career.

“It’s very difficult with COVID-19, no free-flow of anything and it has to be taken seriously because it can kill you; it has a serious impact, so I’m just advising persons to do something extra and, most importantly, it teaches you to save, because with savings, you have money for these sort of times when money isn’t flowing too well”, Jacobs ended.