Kalinago people train with the Australian Cricket Team

The Australian Cricket Team has made a big difference in a small community of Dominica through cricket.

Armed with bags of cricket gear and tickets to the first Test at Windsor Park – Australia invited seven young men of the Kalinago group to take part in the team’s training session.

The Kalinago people, also known as Caribs, are an indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.

The visit was part of Cricket Cares, Cricket Australia’s community action program and was supported by the Australian High Commission of Trinidad and Tobago.

Despite their small population, the Kalinago people love their cricket and have their own cricket association and multiple teams, despite lacking infrastructure and equipment.

Some of the cricketers cannot afford shoes or balls, let alone any type of uniform; they play barefooted and use tape over tennis balls.

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Shane Watson (left) presents one of the Kalinago cricketers with a bundle of tickets for the first Test // Getty Images

Australia batsmen Shane Watson made the presentation to the Kalinago cricketers who in light of the gifts through their full support behind the Australians ahead of the first Test

"Unfortunately they don’t have too much cricket gear so it’s nice that Gav (Team Manager) and the support crew brought some gear over for them," Watson said.

"They said they are going to be supporting us, we will have to see when the game is on the line."

The locals seemed enamoured with the size of the bats, namely David Warner’s, and even had a chance to face Warner and Mitchell Johnson in the nets with Mitchell Starc in an unfamiliar position behind the stumps.

The Kalinago people occupy an area on the Dominica’s east coast of approximately 15-square kilometres known as the Carib Territory. 

The remaining Kalinago population is just 3000.