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Cricket clubs, especially those with adequate financial resources, have been strongly urged to develop their facilities.

Doing so would ensure that Barbados moves into a position to play first-class matches outside of Kensington Oval and also have enough grounds to quality for hosting regional tournaments such as the Red Stripe Bowl, says Minister of Sports Rudolph Cappy Greenidge.

He threw out the challenge to clubs in an address at the Barbados Cricket Association's (BCA) 2000 awards ceremony at Kensington Oval on Friday night.

I am going to appeal to clubs, especially those clubs with money to do whatever is possible to upgrade their grounds, clubhouses and our cricket generally, Greenidge told the small audience.

There are clubs with money that are doing absolutely nothing to help us. We are lagging behind places like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana when it comes to having three or four grounds that we can play cricket at simultaneously in any particular tournament.

Since the inception of the Red Stripe Bowl in 1997, Barbados have never hosted a leg of the competition. Jamaica, which can boast of having at least six grounds capable of staging such matches, will host a zone for the fifth successive year next month, while Guyana, which has just as many grounds, will do so for the third time in five years.

Whenever you are having a regional tournament now, the teams come into one island and play at Ground 1, 2 and 3, Greenidge said. All of those grounds would have to be at a certain level. We do not have that level and I believe that the time has come for us to move away from Kensington as being the only place that we have that we can play cricket like that.

The Windward Club ground in Lucas Street, St Philip, was utilised last year for a first-class match between Barbados and South Africa A, but it was not used during this year's Busta Cup when each of Barbados' six home matches was played at Kensington.

Greenidge identified Windward, the North Stars ground in Crab Hill, St Lucy, and the Cable & Wireless BET ground in Wildey as those with potential to hold regional matches.

We have grounds in Barbados that are up there and they are almost ready but we need to spend some money to get us up to where Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana are, he added.

The sports minister also urged the BCA to try to have its annual awards ceremony no later than four weeks after the completion of the season, as the celebratory effect could be diminished if it was held well after the season.

He, however, commended the BCA for its innovations for this domestic season, which included the introduction of covers and a new format in which matches were played over two successive days, starting at 10:30 a.m. daily.

No one can ever criticise the BCA for that. It is history that whoever is president, whoever is responsible for those initiatives, especially covers, must at some time be regarded as a person or as a group of persons to have made a significant contribution to cricket in Barbados, Greenidge said.

He observed that in an effort to attain outright results over the two days, some teams were approaching batting in a rush and he suggested that half-hour could be added to the beginning and end of each day's play, thereby extending the match by a further two hours.

He also lauded the BCA for having a benefit match for Winston Reid earlier this year and said he hoped there could a chain of benefit matches for those who have contributed so much to cricket.

© The Barbados Nation