The origins of the Cuban cricket team began in the 1920s when an influx of sugar workers from Jamaica and Barbados brought cricket to the plantations on the east of Cuba. Their teams played in leagues and cup competitions in Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Baraguá.
Cuba's first international match in 1952, against a Jamaican team, included Jamaica's former Governor-General, Howard Cooke.
By the late 1990s cricket had spread to Havana, where there are more than 500 players. More than 2,000 juniors and adults play cricket today, with it being taught in some schools. More than 20 teams recently took part in a national under-15 tournament.
Today there is pressure to expand cricket in Cuba with the government stating that it wants to be more closely aligned with other Caribbean countries. In 2002 Cuba became an affiliate member of the International Cricket Council.
The president of the Cuban Cricket Commission is Leona Ford. After hearing of a speech she had given, Cooke persuaded Courtney Walsh to become involved and raise equipment for Cuban teams. Donations have also come from South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Guyana, Canada, India and Britain. Former Indian One-day all rounder Robin Singh travelled to Cuba in 2007 forming a coaching team to train young players.
Famous quotes containing the words cuba, national, cricket and/or team:
“Bernstein: “Girls delightful in Cuba stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery but don’t feel right spending your money stop. There is no war in Cuba. Signed Wheeler.” Any answer?
Charles Foster Kane: Yes—Dear Wheeler, You provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1985)
“But for the national welfare, it is urgent to realize that the minorities do think, and think about something other than the race problem.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.””
—Clement Clarke Moore (1779–1863)