Cricket is making some progress here, with a club now formally constituted by INDER (Cuban Institute for Sports and recreation). The club holds meetings once a month to talk about cricket at the Caribbean Association in Marianao, Havana. Any cricketers passing through Havana on holiday would be most welcome to come and talk about cricket or show a video.

We have also had two games - on 6 and 14 October. On 6, it was a Cuban and expatriate team against a visiting team called the Miami Caribbean Masters, led by Mo Ally. The Caribbean Masters were all of West Indian origin, but living and working in the US and the Bahamas. Although they claimed an average age of over 50, they were clearly very professional in their approach, and very fit looking. As the Cuban players were very inexperienced, the visitors very kindly swapped four of their players for four of ours. The game was played at the Saborit Stadium in Playa, a suburb on the western side of Havana. The pitch had recently been used for Rugby sevens tournament, and the grass had been left uncut for a long time. We managed to cut it reasonably short, but there had been a lot of rain, and the surface was very uneven. The Caribbean masters announced they would not bowl at full pace, for which we were very grateful.

We decided on a match of 30 overs per side, and having won the toss put the visitors in to bat. They lost a couple of quick wickets lbw, but then settled in. Because the grass was quite long and wet, runs were hard to come by, unless they lofted the ball. They very soon began to do that, but a couple of mis-hits resulted in some catches which were snatched up by the home team, with the Financial Times correspondent holding three catches in the deep.. In the end they were all out for 80 with about 25 overs gone.

The Cuban team were treated to some fairly gentle bowling by the Caribbean Masters. We also had the advantage of representatives from the Jamaican Embassy, the Grenadan consulate and CARICOM, all with good experience of cricket. A couple of the younger Cuban players also deployed their baseball skills to good effect and in the end we won by about 4 wickets with about 10 overs to spare.

After the game, the visitors very generously donated some equipment and some very handsome Caribbean Masters shirts. They also promised to send more equipment, and to come back and play again. It was a splendid occasion, and was witnessed by the Ambassadors of India and Guyana. The result was reported the next day on Cuban TV programme "Todo Deporte" (All Sport)

The second game on 14 October, was a Cuban team against a team of Caribbean students of Physical education from the Physical Education Institute in San Jose, Havana province. This was organised by the Jamaican Embassy in honour of Jamaica's National day, and the match was attended by the Jamaican Ambassador. The students batted first, and managed 112 in 20 overs, lofting the ball over the very slow outfield.

The Cuban team this time had no expatriate members, and the students, bowling at a lively pace, reduced them to 50 all out in about 15 overs. The students will, we hope be playing and coaching regularly and this should help enormously in raising the level of cricket here.

The profile of cricket is now much higher in Cuba, and some useful momentum is being generated. The Director of the Saborit stadium has even talked of giving the stadium over to cricket if we will maintain the stand as well as the ground.. So everyone here is feeling very optimistic. We still need all the support we can get from overseas, and will always be ready to welcome visiting cricketers. We are particularly in need of an artificial surface to play on.

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