Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth — Keith Wellington, principal of St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) will be hoping for yet another trophy as his school enters tomorrow’s start of the all-island, three-day cricket play-off for the ISSA Spaulding Cup.

But equally, he will be happy if the urban ISSA/Grace Shield champions, Excelsior High provide tough competition.

After STETHS secured their 28th all-rural ISSA/Grace Headley Cup title last week, Wellington admitted that down the years he has been bothered by the ease with which the school has usually dominated — reflecting what he considers to be an inadequate standard in school cricket.

“I don’t think it is any fun for us to be consistently the champions without having to work overtime to get it,” said Wellington.

Not that last week’s success was by any means easy. This season STETHS had to work hard. The early season absence of West Indies Under-19 players Michael Frew and Shahid Crooks — who were away on the triumphant age group World Cup campaign in Bangladesh — severely weakened the school team.

STETHS even lost to parish rivals and eventual semi-finalists, Munro College while Crooks and Frew were away. And even with the return of the duo, STETHS were pushed by Tacky High in the Grace Headley Cup semi-final and by Vere Technical High in last week’s final.

In fact STETHS, relying heavily on Frew and Crooks, got past Vere on the strength of first-innings points in a drawn game, after the first day was ruined by rain.

For Wellington, the pressures this season have made the latest Headley Cup triumph especially gratifying.

“This is a fairly young team,” said Wellington. “I heard the Vere coach saying this team was the worst STETHS team he has played against and I don’t think what he said would have been far from the truth. To have come out here and to have won, despite all of that, I think is a really, really good achievement for us,” he said.

Wellington, as well as coach Clive Ledgister, say the relatively good cricket facilities at STETHS which allow practise all-year round, intensive coaching, and strong support programmes from administration and past students, largely explain the school’s consistent success.

“I think the facility here has a lot to do with it, plus support from the school administration and others…once you get proper support from the administration then you will always be competitive in (school cricket),” said Ledgister.

“We get help from past students — persons who have played as well as those who have not played. They help in the provision of gear and so forth,” said Wellington.

The principal cited the example of West Indies fast bowler Jerome Taylor who has pledged to underwrite the installation of permanent sight screens for the cricket ground.

Wellington, a vice-president of ISSA (Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association), hopes other schools will seek to emulate the STETHS programme in an overall drive to improve the standard of cricket.

“As much as we enjoy winning. We would also like to see improvement in the game, we therefore encourage other schools to try and work on their own programmes so that STETHS doesn’t just win each year. We do what we have to do. We can’t control what others do, but we would love to see other persons invest in their programme so that cricket as a whole can improve,” he said.

Principal and coach concede that the investment doesn’t come easy. Cricket is a notoriously expensive game. At STETHS, well in excess of $2million is spent during the cricket season.

“A good cricket bat will cost $20,000, a pair of pads $10,000, a pair of batting gloves will run you eight to $10,000; then there are all the other costs to prepare the pitch and field, nutrition programme, transportation, wages for coaches and groundsmen… cricket is very expensive,” said Ledgister.

Still they believe that school leaders with the requisite will to succeed can match STETHS at cricket — a game, which they say encourages discipline and strategic thinking.

— Garfield Myers