An International Cricket Council (ICC) tutor course for women will be conducted in the kingdom for the first time from today.
The three-day event, titled ‘The ICC 100% Level 1 Tutor Course for Women’, is hosted by the Bahrain Cricket Federation (BCF) and will feature participants from nine Asian countries, including the kingdom.
The course will be conducted by two ICC Master Trainers – former Pakistan all-rounder Iqbal Sikander and former Bangladesh captain Mohammad Aminul Islam.
The initiative is part of the ICC’s new Training and Education programmes and reflects the organisation’s commitment to growing the game of cricket around the world.
“These courses are being conducted around the world,” Islam, who is the ICC’s development manager for Asia, told the GDN in an exclusive interview.
“As Master Trainers in this course, Iqbal and I will be training tutors from eight countries – Oman, Singapore, Nepal, Pakistan, Qatar, Malaysia, the UAE, Kuwait and, of course, Bahrain. These tutors will then go back to their respective countries and train coaches.”
Islam, who is one of only four men in history to have scored a century on debut in their country’s first-ever Test match, is on his first official visit to Bahrain. Sikander, who was part of Pakistan’s 1992 World Cup-winning squad and is the ICC’s development head for Asia, has visited the kingdom frequently over the past 18 years.
The ICC currently has 108 members. 12 of those are ‘Full Members’ – meaning Test-playing nations – while the remaining 96 are known as ‘Associate Members’.
“The slogan for this initiative is ‘ICC-built, Member-driven’,” Islam explained.
“This course is designed to cover basic, core cricket skills and focuses on the role of the coach as well as coaching techniques.”
Bahrain had been selected as the venue for such a key course because of the recent honours bestowed upon the country by the ICC earlier this year, Islam added.
In April, the game’s governing body awarded the ICC’s Female Cricket Initiative of the Year Award for the Middle East to Bahrain for ‘Building a robust community of women cricketers’.
And, in June, the Bahrain Women’s Cricket League was given the ‘100% Female Cricket Initiative of the Year’ award by the ICC.
Islam heaped praise on BCF president Hatim Dadabai, BCF advisory board chairman Mohammed Mansoor, the BCF’s chief development officer Gurumurthy Palani and other key officials.
“We’ve been working very closely with them since they took charge just over a year ago,” he said.
“In this short span of time, they’ve created revolutionary new initiatives and provided the game with the kind of impetus it needs to grow rapidly in the country. The awards from the ICC reflect an appreciation of that fact.
“That’s why this course will help to add to that momentum by creating a new generation of female tutors and coaches and help to grow women’s cricket in the kingdom.”