Cook Islands: Tupapa and Arorangi lead the field as cricket is introduced to schools

Cricket is played on four islands - Rarotonga (the capital), Aitutaki (40 miles out), Pukapuka (600 miles) and Nassau (600 miles).

In Rarotonga, there is a 10 team competition comprising several stages - the first round, second round, the knockout competition and the champion of champions trophy.

The competition starts with a nine game round robin first round with the first place team winning the first round trophy.

For the second round, the top six and bottom four from the first round split into separate divisions, playing five and three games respectively.

Another trophy is on offer to the winner of the second round for the first division. The top two of the second division join the six teams from the first division for the knockout. The last two placed teams from the second division drop out.

The winner of the knockout plays the winner of the first division round robin for the title of champion of champions.

The current placings of the first division are Tupapa 10, Arorangi 10, Muri 8, Takukaine 8, Titikaroka 4, Turangi 4, Matarora 4, Nikao 2, Muri II 2, Turangi II 0.

There has been a notable improvement in the standard of the players who represented the Cook Islands at the 2001 Pacifica Championships.

The success story of Cook Islands cricket in 2001 was the resurrection of the Aitutaki Cricket Association competition. After being dormant for 10 years, cricket on Aitutaki was revived with a six team senior men's team, two under 19 boys teams and two women's teams.

Pukapuka and Nassau are sister islands - people living on Nassau are Pukapukans.

There is a large population of Pukapukans in Auckland, New Zealand and Wollongong, Australia who play their own Killikiti style of cricket as well as the English version.

Their combined club competition is divided into a three club competition ie people staying in those villages in Pukapuka. They are Roto, Ngake and Yato.

Our goal is to beat Tonga at the Pacifica Championship in Samoa in June/July this year.

A huge step forward in 2002 will be the introduction of cricket into schools in Rarotonga and Aitutaki. This will build upon two Introductory course and one Level One course conducted by the International Cricket Council's Tim Anderson and Auckland Cricket Association's Kaushik Patel.