Minister Ramson says practice makes perfect at 2nd Everest Summer Camp

Aug 17, 2022 Sports

By Sean Devers

Kaieteur News – Back in 1914 when J.A. Veerasammy founded the British Guiana East Indian Cricket Club (EICC) which was renamed the Everest Cricket Club 1971, little would he have known that 108 years later the upgraded Everest would become one of the most progressive Clubs in Guyana.

Minister of Culture, Youth & Sports Charles Ramson with Paul, Kumar, Sophia’s rep with the participants at Everest yesterday. (Sean Devers photo)

Minister Charles Ramson Jnr makes a point yesterday as ECC’s Ramdeo Kumar, Speaker of the House and ECC President Manzoor Nadir and West Indies player Keemo Paul listen. (Sean Devers photo)

This week, Everest launched its second youth camp this summer as the Camp Road Club, one of three clubs in the City to host First-Class Cricket, opened its doors to 50 young boys between the ages of 7-18 which included 16 from the Sophia Ward.

The one-week Camp, which commenced on Monday, was officially launched yesterday with Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Charles Ramson, a former first division left-arm spinner at Everest, delivering the feature address.

Also speaking were Speaker of House and President of Everest Manzoor Nadir, Everest’s Treasurer Ramdeo Kumar and West Indies all-rounder Keemo Paul who plays for Everest.

Nadir stressed on the importance of teamwork and discipline and told the wide-eyed youngsters that apart from Paul, who hails Saxacally in Essequibo, Chanderpaul Hemraj, Matthew Nandu, Junior Sinclair, Gudakesh Motie and Shimron Hetymer, who recently joined the club, were the Everest players in this season’s Guyana Amazon Warriors Franchise to play in the CPL tournament.

Assistant ‘Warriors’ Coach Shaheed Mohammed who played in Stanford T20 for the Cayman Islands, also recently scored a century for the Everest Masters.

Paul, who played in last T20 Series against New Zealand, told the excited young boys of the importance of hard work, dedication and discipline.

Minister Ramson Jnr interacts with the participants at Everest yesterday. (Sean Devers photo)

Minister Ramson told the gathering to always aim to be the best without compromising the team.

“If someone scores more runs or takes more wickets than you it does not mean they were born with skill to do that. It means that he has practised more than you. When you were born you could not write and when you were leaning to write your handwriting was ‘scrawly’ and not neat but after doing it over and over you got better.

If you engage in consistent practice a particular skill you improve in it. When I was 18 I could not bat higher up in the Everest line-up because of the quality of the batters. I was a good bowler and I concentrated on bowling. If I knew then what I know now I would have practiced more on my batting.

Sports Minister Charles Ramson Jnr presents Gear to one of the participants from QC. (Sean Devers photo)

So If someone bats for 20 minutes at practice and make 50 then if you practice for an hour you could make 100,” said the former West Indies Lawyer’s cricketer.

Minister Ramson, who attended Queen’s College, promised that if anyone from this camp makes a Guyana team at U-15 or U-17 level he would provide them with all the gear they need.

After the speeches the youngsters were engaged in a match on ground which became a first-Class venue when Guyana played a touring England XI in February 1998.

Everest hosted five First-Class matches that were played at the ground, three of which involving South Africa, India and Australia.

This camp is scheduled to conclude on Friday and Minister Ramson encouraged the participants to join Everest or one of the big clubs in the City when this camp is over if they are interested in playing cricket seriously.

President Nadir said there are no females involved in this camp, but added that the club plans to introduce females into their cricket.