The Vavine Pala Cup

The Vavine Pala [Cricket] Cup is a community driven sports initiative headed by members of the Hula Village cricket and local community, in Papua New Guinea and abroad.  It is planned to be a day of competitive men’s and women’s cricket, with competing teams from Port Moresby and Hula Village.

The concept of the Vavine Pala cup arose from a desire of the committee to encourage youth in the village of Hula, Central Province, P.N.G., to get involved in a sports initiative, promote gender equality, support our community, and use this concept as a vehicle to fundraise for development projects in the Hula area.

Vavine Pala is considered one of Papua New Guinea's most successful cricketers, forging an impressive cricket career with Raukele Cricket Club, Port Moresby, and captaining the PNG Barramundi team, as well as being a member of the Gold Medal winning team of the 1991 Pacific Games. He went on to coach the PNG U19 team from 2001 to 2002 and again in 2005. Vavine Pala sadly passed away in June 2014.

The name of the trophy signifies excellence in sport, and humility before god, taken from the name of the legendary Cricket all-rounder Vavine Pala, a devastating swing bowler and powerful batsman.

The Vavine Pala cup will be held on Saturday the 13th of August and will comprise two 20/20 matches the first one involving two women’s teams, one from Port Moresby and one from Hula and the main game in the afternoon between the men’s teams, again a team from Port Moresby competing against a team from Hula. In brief it will be the Raukele Port Moresby team taking on the best players from Hula Village.

As well as facilitating a day of superb cricket, it is anticipated that 3 initial development projects will be championed by this initiative:

 - Cricket Scholarship for selected Hula players to play in the Port Moresby grade competition
This will provide an opportunity and pathway for the best cricketers in Hula Village to receive further training and help to identify the next Vavine Pala from Hula

 - Upgrade of the Raukele cricket oval to enable hosting of corporate cricket matches for income generation for the community
Raukele oval was once described as the Lords Cricket ground of Papua, therefore we would like to re-establish a professional and enjoyable facility whereby corporates can attend a day of cricket at as well utlilising the opportunity to enjoy the idyllic surrounds  of the Hood Point area.  The oval is now confirmed as only for use by the Cricket Association Furthermore, the committee would like to encourage sustainability and rely less on handouts.
 
- Contributions for a Hula Day High School classroom in preparation of initial grade 10 intake in 2017
With the support and leadership of our provincial and national government the School at Hula has been upgraded to provide for Grade 9 students this year, with the students continuing on to be pioneer grade 10’s next year. The school board is actively involved in fundraising to build a new classroom and the Vavine Pala Cup is an opportunity to raise awareness about important community requirement as well as actively solicit contributions.

The funds raised in our campaign will be used to facilitate the day of cricket by providing uniforms, trophies, medals, transport, and food and refreshments. More importantly, by funding the Vavine Pala cup, support and awareness will be raised and actioned for our development projects, of which present an invaluable contribution to our community.

We are thankful for all contributions and appreciate all support given to the Vavine Pala cup and the initiative it represents to better our community infrastructure, community environment, and our youth and their future.

Raukele team members, circa. 1980