The Edison Cricket team had the opportunity to meet with a professional cricket player. This player is known as 23 year old Joshua Da Silva. He is a player on the Trinidad and Tobago National Cricket Team as well as the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots. He plays the position of a wicket-keeper and right-handed batsman in the field. 

The Edison cricket team had met with Joshua Da Silva through a Google Meeting which had occurred for approximately twenty-five minutes. This meeting was set up by Ms. Butto, who is a teacher at Edison. According to Ashikul Araf, a player on the Edison team, “she is his cousin” which made the process for contacting the player to set up the meeting fairly easy.

Throughout the course of the meeting, Joshua Da Silva talked about his idols and who had inspired him to become a WK batsman. For those unfamiliar with the sport of cricket, a WK batsman is known as wicket-keeper-batsman. His idols were revealed as Brain Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and Adam Gilchrist who are also in the cricket profession. As stated by Ms. Butto, “If you play the sport, you’re going to look to the professionals for guidance” because whenever we play a sport, we associate that sport with whatever hero we may look up to. 

Players on the team state that the player was exactly how they had expected him to be. The team states he was a nice person who offered them important advice on their game including how they can improve themselves. The advice definitely helped because they have just recently won a match after the meeting and are off to the semi-finals. He provided guidance from the professional level of this sport which provided the players with expectations that make the game more relatable on a human level. According to Ms. Butto, a teacher at Edison, Joshua Da Silva was “super pumped you won your game after his meet and greet.”   

The player had offered advice to the team on how they can improve their performance on the field. Joshua Da Silva told the team that they should keep their head straight while batting and practice as much as they can.

It was stated that Joshua Da Silva had told the team, ​​”Practice is the key to improve and for fielding try catching the bowling 100 times each day and eventually you won’t fear anything and it will be easy for you to do better in matches.”

Furthermore, along with the advice that was offered to the players, Joshua Da Silva had gone in depth about how the game works in detail. He shared tips that the players didn’t think were necessary to their game until after this meeting had occurred. These connections between a player and a role model in the sport they play is what makes the game more real.