Wilkinson raring to go as new President of SVG Cricket Association

NEWLY ELECTED President of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association (SVGCA) Roland Wilkinson, has expressed his appreciation to members of the Association for the they have placed in him. At the same time, the new president has indicated that he and his executive must get to work immediately.

Speaking following his 67-40 victory over Frankie Joseph at the May 9 2026 annual general meeting of the Association, Wilkinson told SEARCHLIGHT: “I’m very proud. I am very thankful to the members, the players, who came out and voted. Getting that amount of votes really means a lot to me. So that means now the executive will have to start working right away, because this is the confidence that the affiliates put in us. We don’t want to disappoint”.

No stranger to the SVGCA executive, Wilkinson, who served for eight years as a committee member in the two previous executives could be considered to have been involved in cricket for most of his life. This, therefore, is a continuation of his cricket life which began at the age of 10.

He played for the SVG Under-19 at the age of 14 years, then for the Windward Islands Under-19 when he was 15 years old.

Wilkinson made the SVG senior team at age 18, and the Windward Islands senior team at 25 years of age.

He was also the chairman of selectors for St Vincent and the Grenadines, and went on to be a Windward Islands selector, “So I am not new. I’m always involved in it”, Wilkinson stated.

He acknowledged though that he and his executive have a lot of work to do.

“Cricket has been down for a while in SVG. I know we will be under a lot of pressure because of the failure of cricket. So it’s a lot of work for me and the new executive to get it back up,” the new president pointed out.

First, he aims to work with the Minister of Sports, “to try to get the primary schools back”. Ironically, the Minister of Sports, Kaschaka Cupid, also represented SVG at the youth cricket level, and was a member of the outgoing executive.

Wilkinson also identified “grassroots programme development, visiting different zones, creating a database of players from a caravan, and school cricket that we expected to organise, getting

more coaches involved and qualified, promoting the game in different communities across the country” among other areas for development.

“And I’m going to try very hard to see how I can get support to invest in an indoor facility, increase the involvement of all stakeholders, make the game more attractive to sponsors, improve the club structure and local competition, and do more social media promotion,” the new president added.

“ So these are along the line that I want to go because we have a lot of work to do [and]cricket really needs some attention, especially from the grassroots level.” While acknowledging that they are a relatively young executive with just three persons from the previous executive retained, Wilkinson highlighted that they are cricketers who have played the game at a various levels, so they know what is expected of them and “there’s a lot of experience there.” There has been no local cricket competition since last year, but Wilkinson said they are eager to see the resumption of competitive cricket. However, he is mindful that with carnival on the horizon, there could be some problems with the availability of facilities, but it something he said his executive plans to address immediately.

The executive has to be on the ball almost immediately, as a national training squad has already been selected for the Windward Islands tournament, and a final squad has to be named.

Also, St.Vincent and the Grenadines for the first time, are slated to host three Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL) night matches at Arnos Vale from Friday, August 7 to Sunday, August 9, 2026.