Some of Bermuda’s young cricketers will celebrate National Heroes Day on Monday by playing in the Backyard Smash.

Drawing inspiration from the Bermuda Smash Invitation, which concluded last Saturday, Isaac Todd, Aaron Paynter and Sa-Qui Robinson have put together their own version.

Robinson, who played in the Smash for finalists Sandys Spartans, provided the venue in Smith’s.

Todd featured in the Future Stars encounter before the final, while Paynter was part of the Hamilton Parish Hurricanes.

“When it first started, it was just a group of us coming together and just enjoying playing in the backyard like we used to,” Todd said.

“Then this year, we decided to make it official to try and bring more interest into the youth in playing by going back to where we all started.

“Throughout the summer, we’ll play shorter T20 sort of games. On Heroes Day, we’re playing a Test match.

“We’re using Sa-Qui’s backyard on Kilderry Close, and we’ll call Kilderry Oval. We have around 14 players involved, split across two teams evenly, but for the future we’re planning to expand to about four teams.

“We also have one girl, Katherine Bean-Rosario, playing in the match, which is a positive because we don’t usually see a lot of girls play with us.”

BSI has come in as a sponsor, with Pure Water, Bermuda Waterworks, FrayStar Cricket Institute, Wasted Bermuda and Straightline Services the other supporters of the event.

Shane Hollis, one of the BSI directors, got interested when word got to him through some of his club players.

“We came on as a sponsor and we brought Isaac to work with us during the Bermuda Smash to see how we run our tournament,” Hollis said.

“I actually heard about them through some of my youngsters in the Somerset Bridge team who are also involved.

“What really drove me to watch these guys and pay attention to what they’re doing is that’s the essence of how we all started playing cricket.

“It’s the backyard cricket, that’s where we sharpen our talent, identify our talent and fall in love with the sport. That’s the purest form of cricket that you could possibly play.

“The way these guys are organising it, it kind of matched with this organised franchise cricket and the proper essence that we learnt how to to sharpen our skills.

“I think that’s something that we wanted to gravitate towards is something positive. That’s what we represent as BSI, we represent bringing something new or fresh to cricket.

“Seeing those guys, hopefully, it’s an inspiration to how we organise ourselves, that’s something that we love to see.”

Todd acknowledged the support they received from the BSI.

“We definitely appreciate it as they’re giving back towards the youth,” he said.

“They’re trying to grow the game as well and we can look forward to what they do in the future.”

Stephen Outerbridge, another BSI director, feels that they are moving in the right direction if they are inspiring young players to emulate them.

“It really motivates me because I think we know we’re doing something well because they have done a lot of similarities to what we do,” Outerbridge said.

“They’ve done the whole draft for the game on June 15, so it’s very encouraging to see. We all came from the backyard and I credit all my cricket to playing in the backyard.”