The second edition of the Obuasi Cricket Festival held from June 24 to 29, at the KNUST Obuasi Campus Cricket Oval has given birth to Obuasi Cricket Academy with the motto, ‘Let’s Chase the Dream’.
The intense six-day festival, which saw over 540 children between ages 8 and 15 for both genders trained in bowling, batting, and fielding, wrapped up on Saturday, with a mixed gender T20 game between Larry Hill Cricket Club and Van Etten Cricket Club.
Larry Hill CC threw themselves into the crease first after winning toss and score 82/8. Youngster, Emmanuella Abdulai did wonders on veteran Eric Manu (Ajos) and captain Prince Obeng with her magical bowling to set the pace for Van Etten, as she ended up with figures (3-0-14-4).
Senior national team captain, Samson Awe Awiah (*52-43) opened the batting for Van Etten CC in the second innings, together with captain Prince Jula (5-5) as they achieved 86/3 in 14.1 over and won by 7 wickets.
Emmanuella Abdulai walked home with the Player of the Match accolade with her 4 wickets, giving away 14 runs in 3 overs.
President of Georgia Women’s Cricket Association, Petal Samuels, graced the occasion and umpired the match together with GCA Development Officer, Lawrence Ahadzi.
The match, which was played to offer the children an opportunity to learn, achieved the purpose, as commentary on the game and incidents were explained throughout to the admiration of the beneficiaries.
Larry Hill and Oscar Van Etten are expatriates and Project & Operations Managers at the Underground Mining Alliance (UMA) in Obuasi, main sponsors of the festival. They love the game and are ready to support its growth in Obuasi, as the dream of the Obuasi Cricket Academy is to make it a household name.
Other sponsors include the Obuasi Municipal Assembly, Ghana Mine Workers Union, and Toni-B Drinking Water, while Williams Afoakwah, foreman at UMA accompanied Larry Hill to grace the closing ceremony.
The Obuasi Cricket Academy has Rhyda Ofori Amanfo as President, with Janet Alaare as Vice. Secretary and Treasurer are Prince Obeng Manu and Ellen Otu Asante, while Head Coach, Physical Trainer, Head of Scorers and Patron being Williams Kanchoba, Isaac Quaye, Florence Owusu Ansah and John Williams respectively.
President of the Academy, Rhyda Ofori Amanfo, who doubles as the captain of Ghana’s senior women’s cricket national team, outlined some plans.
“The beginning of everything is tough, and we wanted a bigger and different second edition, so the team together with the sponsors put in a lot of effort, to make it like this. We have a lot of activities for Obuasi and a vision to go and help other regions to develop cricket in Ghana. Honestly speaking, we want to own Cricket here in Obuasi and Ghana.”
“All things being equal, whatever we are doing for the academy to stay in Obuasi, we will bring it out for publication for all to know, because we will be chasing the dream and it will come to reality, ” she added.
Obuasi has seen many players feature for the national team, as cricket begun with the expatriates some years back, playing on the KNUST Obuasi Campus Cricket Oval. For the Cricket Festival’s success and the growing numbers, one can only hope the ‘dream’ is achieved by the newly formed Obuasi Cricket Academy.