Barranquilla Cricket Tournament

Following the recent blog post about the growth of cricket in Colombia. The inaugural Barranquilla cricket tournament was held on the Flicx Pitch in February 2022 between a touring team from Bogota and a newly recognised team from Barranquilla.

A week before the tournament, a training camp was held by Julian Buttigieg to introduce techniques and the general rules of cricket to some of the players.

The tournament consisted of 3 games over the weekend with one guest player from Panama who is an ICC ranked batsmen. The tournament attracted local support and media coverage even featuring in the Barranquilla televised news.

The tournament was played over the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Considering some of the Barranquilla players had only recently picked up cricket as a sport, Barranquilla gave Bogota a good game on Friday. In the end the tournament was claimed by Bogota, but the real winner was cricket. The aim of the tournament was to introduce cricket and inspire the community of Barranquilla.

All of the players were “super happy” with how the pitch played throughout the tournament. Julian commented that “the Flicx Pitch has done us wonders without it we wouldn’t have been able to host the tournament”.

The tournament saw the discovery of many naturally talented players who had real passion for cricket. Some were naturally talented with the ball while others had the natural ability in the field, which lead to an amazing run out during one of the games.

“The tournament went really well, the majority had never played a game before, it was really awesome and inspiring”– Julian Buttigieg

There are aims to play the Barranquilla tournament annually as well as several other cricket tournaments and championships that are taking place in Colombia. We at Flicx are delighted to be a part of the growth of cricket in Colombia. We wish all the best to Barranquilla Cricket Club and hope to see and hear more as they develop as a club.