Sierra Leone cricket history could be traced as far back in 1898 when a British Artillery Regiment brought this beautiful game to Sierra Leone and spread it in the entire country including schools and other institutions and communities. The Sierra Leone Grammar School and the Methodist Boys High School are the first schools to play cricket and the government Secondary School, Bo, is the first secondary school to take the game of cricket to the Hinter Land situated approximately 186km from Freetown, the Capital of Sierra Leone,
The game later spread in almost all existing secondary schools in the country. Sierra Leone started playing international tournament in 1935 with the Gambia who were later joined by Federal republic of Nigeria and Ghana as an inter- Colonial tournament and later became the West Africa cricket Conference WACC. A sub regional cricket governing body that was administering and organizing cricket competitions in West Africa which has now been transformed in the North-west Africa Cricket Conference NWACC which comprises Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Mali, Morocco and Cameroun.
Cricket has been playing in Sierra Leone since then. The Sierra Leone Cricket association-SLCA was founded on the 15th November, 1942. Sierra Leone became an affiliate member of the Africa cricket association- ACA in 1997 and the ICC in 2001.
Cricket is the most successful sport in Sierra Leone and has won many laurels for Sierra Leone. Prominent amongst these achievements is the Sierra Leone national U19 cricket team’s exemplary performance in Maputo and Lusaka Zambia in April and August 2009 in the ICC-Africa Cricket U19 world cup qualifiers where Sierra Leone defeated the likes of Kenya, Zambia, Nigeria and Botswana, narrowly loses to Uganda by Duckworth Lewis method of recalculation and Namibia, to qualify for the ICC global U19 cricket world cup qualifier but was denied entry visa to Canada, the then host of the tournament.
The current structure of the Sierra Leone Cricket Association- SLCA is in line with the ICC’s member’s governance structure and international best practice.
The Board of Directors/control, is headed by a Chairman, is the highest organ in the Sierra Leone cricket Association, constituted by the full membership clubs of the Sierra Leone cricket association, the national representative sides of U19, Senior women and men’s athletes of the last two years of the cricket season. The board is constitutionally charged with the responsibilities of administering cricket in Sierra Leone, develop and design policies for the SLCA, set goals and objectives and source funds for the Executive management committee to implement and run the day – day operations of cricket in Sierra Leone, and report to the cricket stakeholders and sponsors of the sierra Leone cricket association-SLCA
The executive management committee EMC headed by the chief Executive Officer CEO is charged with the day to day operations of cricket. The EMC is responsible for implementing the policies formulated by the board of directors and ensures that the goals and objectives set out by the board of directors are achieved, and report to the board of directors. The Chief executive Officer is the chief policy adviser to the board and sits together with the secretary and Chief financial officer on board meetings with voting rights.
The executive is directly elected by the cricket stakeholders in an elective congress.
Sierra Leone has a huge potential in cricket with untapped cricketing talents but faced a huge challenge on standard cricket playing facilities, high performance cricket coaches and funding of much needed projects. Reactivating the game of cricket countrywide that will see an increase in participation, developing more standard cricket playing grounds and improve the capacity of the current pool of coaches are key to SLCA’s strategic cricket development plan.
