Banakekeleni cricket team kitted
MARLBORO - Children from Banakekeleni Orphanage Cricket Team were overjoyed at the surprise visit by former South African cricketer Neil McKenzie.
The orphanage in Marlboro is home to children affected and infected by HIV/Aids. The children were startled when McKenzie paid their newly-started cricket team a visit to deliver new KFC mini-cricket kits.
McKenzie stayed on to do a little one-on-one coaching with the children during which time he shared some of the secrets he’s learned over the course of his cricketing career that made him the player he is today.
He handed over mini-cricket sets – made up of bats, balls and stumps – and cricket shirts, shorts and socks to the value of R4 000. The idea to source cricket equipment for the Banakekeleni children came from Helen Fraser, the director of the Nashua Children’s Charity Foundation.
“The foundation has been providing aid to Banakekeleni since 2003 in the form of a monthly grocery shop that we do for the kids, bedding and linen that we have supplied and basic renovations to their buildings as well as educational toys, books and stationery,” Fraser said.
“As such, we have come to know the children at Banakekeleni well over the years which was why I found it strange one day when I visited the orphanage and found the boys in the middle of an impromptu cricket game.
“These kids are completely soccer-mad and yet there they were playing cricket with wooden planks for bats, an overturned paint drum for a wicket and a few pairs of tightly rolled up socks for a ball.”
Fraser soon learned that a KES pupil, Kamvalethu Mzinzi, who loves cricket and has been coached by KES old boy and South African cricket captain Graeme Smith, had been visiting the orphanage daily and teaching the kids how to play during his school holidays.
Frasier was so impressed by the Banakekeleni boys’ enthusiasm to play cricket that she organised for them to be kitted out.
