Cricketer by day, artiste by night

HOLLYWOOD, Florida – West Indian cricketer Omari Banks, who is in the middle of preparations for the regional Twenty20 cricket tournament, is this weekend making a cameo on the regional entertainment television show ‘Caribbean Soundtrack.’

Banks is better known around the world as an off-spinning all-rounder who has played cricket for the West Indies, the Leeward Islands and English county Somerset.

But secondary to cricket, Banks is an aspiring musician who says he hopes one day to follow in his father’s footsteps and make music commercially.

Banks is the son of Anguilla’s most internationally acclaimed singer Bankie Banks, who is just getting ready for a North America tour this summer.

In a special segment of this week’s Caribbean Soundtrack, Banks speaks about his music tastes, about his cricket and plays his acoustic guitar while doing covers of his father and Beres Hammond.

While it’s an entertainment/music show, the talk quickly turned to cricket once Omari came on.

“I have been following the (recent) series (against South Africa) quite closely, and we know the team has not been doing too well,” he said on his dreams of getting back to the team.

“I am looking forward to have a good Twenty20 competition with the World Cup coming up (next year), and hopefully to get back into the team,” he said.

Caribbean Soundtrack is a weekly one-hour syndicate show featuring Caribbean entertainment that is carried by a mixture of local and regional television networks.

Caribbean Soundtrack is seen throughout the region on cable on Pan Caribbean Channels CARIBVISION (8 pm ECT Saturdays & 9:30 pm Sundays) and TEMPO (7 pm ECT Sundays & 10 am Mondays).

It is also seen on local channels in the British Virgin Islands, Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad & Tobago.

This week’s show is guest hosted by the Anguillan Vanessa Croft, a one-time Los Angeles based child actor who was featured in Michael Jackson’s ‘Black or White’ video.