The Cricket Association of Ghana has successfully held its maiden free breast cancer screening in Obuasi. The association also held a tournament to mark its commitment to fight breast cancer.
According to Angela Cassandra Allotey, the Treasurer of the Ghana Cricket Association the day happens to be one of the important programs on the calendar of the association. She said cricketers have never been involved in breast cancer screening and awareness exercises.
She said breast cancer screening is an agenda that is promoted by cricket associations around the world so the Association in Ghana thought it wise to put together a program to offer free breast cancer screening and to also sensitized people on the disease.
She lauded the Underground Mining Alliance, Bel-Aqua company limited for supporting the program and said going forward, they are willing to bring more sponsors onboard to support the sport.
On the popularity of cricket in Ghana, Madam Allotey conceded that though cricket is not a well known sport in Ghana, the Association has an agenda to ensure that by the year 2024, almost half of the regions that do not have cricket presence will do so.
” We are looking at penetrating the schools. We believe that through that we will inculcate unto the young ones the benefit of the sport”, she added.
She also revealed that this year, they will have a kiddifest competition which will introduce the game at the grassroots level and in schools and also making efforts to push it as a physical education curriculum activity in schools.
Reasons for low visibility of cricket
The treasurer of the Ghana Cricket Association again delved into what accounts for the low visibility of cricket in Ghana. She said the fact that most of the ovals are covered and not in open spaces poses a major challenge to the sport.
She said though not many cricket ovals exist, the association is making frantic efforts to refurbishing the Achimota cricket oval to world class standards to host the 13th Africa games to be held in Accra in March, 2024 which involves 16 teams in Africa.
Access to sponsorship
Madam Allotey spoke about the difficulties in seeking sponsorship for cricket in Ghana.She blamed the situation on the fact that most stakeholders want where there is a lot of visibility which is mostly football but the conversation is changing since cricket has come to stay.
She said they have held stakeholders meeting where they want people to understand the benefits of cricket and the need to invest in the sport.
She said cricket is the new black and has come to stay in Ghana and it is important to know that even the traditional sports are having their own challenges hence it was important that the country looks at the other lesser known sports. She said ones they improve on the visibility of cricket, the future looks brighter.
At the end of the highly competitive tournament, Twinkles XI defeated Crushers by 40 runs.