CWIMA FOUNDERS
History was created on a bright sunny Saturday morning on November 2nd, 2019, in a tiny Conference Room at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites- Fort Lauderdale-Plantation, Florida when a group of exciting West Indian players, dynamic officials and committed well-wishers gathered to discuss the future of masters’ cricket for our Caribbean people. Most countries in the Caribbean and North America had their own brand of masters’ cricket being played without it being streamlined on a consistent and structured manner.
Earlier, in February 2019, the Over 50s World Cup Committee had requested that a few persons form themselves into a committee to prepare a West Indies team to participate at the Over 50s World Cup to be held in March 2020- Cape Town, South Africa. This World Cup Committee initially comprised of Raj Singh as the Chairman, Desmond Haynes, Ian Allen, Imtiaz Ali and Hafiz Mohamed. It soon dawned on the major guys in this Committee that the World Cup was just a singular event and there was need for a more structured organization to properly administer the interests of masters’ cricket for West Indies. So, this development was a natural progression on creating a proper structure and system for the administration of masters’ cricket for our West Indian people.
As such, a steering committee comprising several players and officials was formed to take this process forward:
- Balwant ‘Roy’ Singh (Player)
- Dave Narine (Official)
- Julian Charles (Player)
- Imtiaz ‘Rick’ Ali (Player)
- Kenny Girdharry (Player)
- Raj Singh (Official)
- Zamin Amin (Player)
This initial committee was put together and their first mandate was to create a constitution with the goal of being affiliated to Cricket West Indies (CWI). This constitution has now been completed and application has been made to CWI seeking associate membership status.
The official name of the organization will be Cricket West Indies Masters Association (CWIMA) and its mandate will be to formalize and organize Over 40s, Over 50s and Over 60s tournaments throughout the West Indies and beyond.
The overall goal will be to identify and select future West Indies Masters teams from such tournaments and attract sponsors.
We look forward to successfully launching this newly formed organization and attracting members throughout the Caribbean region.