Kallicharan gets U-17 call-up

Prolific run-scorer Kirstan Kallicharan’s skills will be tested at the Under-17 level after he was named in the Trinidad and Tobago side for this year’s regional Under-17 championships, which takes place in Tobago from July 6-16.

The T&T side will be led by 16-year-old left-arm orthodox spinner Bryan Boodram, who was part of the national Under-17 and Under-19 teams last year.

The 14-year-old middle order batsman, Kallicharan, dominated his age-group in the local PowerGen Secondary Schools Cricket League this season and also excelled at the BG T&T Under-15 InterZone tournament, slamming three centuries in three matches.

His name rings a bell. For those who loved the great West Indian team of the Seventies and Eighties, the name Alvin Issac Kallicharran rekindles memories of a nuggety left-hander, whose stylish batting style and appetite for big runs thrilled the purist. Thirty-four years after the legendary West Indian played his last Test match, another Kallicharan is making cricket headlines in the West Indies. On May 11, Trinidad and Tobago's Under-15 captain Kirstan Kallicharan scored an unbeaten 404 in a 35-over under-14 school match in Port-of-Spain. He came in at No. 3 and in the 10th over. In May last year, he had smashed Brain Lara's high-school record.