South Africa’s leading cricket development programme, the KFC Mini-Cricket programme, kicked off at the Easterns Cricket Union in Benoni with the all-important annual KFC Mini-Cricket Provincial Seminar on 17 September.
The seminar welcomed all the volunteers, administrators and key stakeholders of the programme who met to strategise the 2021/2022 KFC Mini-Cricket season, which has been called the season of “Imvuselelo” or “Recovery”.
One of the guest speakers for the event was East Rand’s very own Tumelo Bodibe, who is a former player for Easterns Cricket and is the assistant coach for Border Cricket in East London.
“The KFC Mini-Cricket programme is very close to me as it gave me my first cricketing experience and introduced me to the game I now coach. To all the coaches and volunteers present, continue working hard, your hard work grows the game and provides future players and coaches,” Bodibe commented.
He was joined by Sandile Masengemi, who is a former player and now the Easterns head coach. Masengemi also started his cricket journey through the KFC Mini-Cricket programme.
“I remember playing cricket for the first time through the programme, before that I had played soccer like most boys in the township. I realised I could play a bit and that was the beginning of my cricket journey, which led me to play professionally and serve the game as a coach,” Masengemi commented.
“The advice I would give the coaches is to keep serving the children and love what you do.”
He stressed that it is at the KFC Mini-Cricket programmes where talent is sourced to nurture the different age groups to build the future Proteas team.
“The KFC Mini-Cricket programme not only gets children active but also aims to improve coaches,” said Easterns coaching education manager Israel Hlengani.
He stressed to the volunteers and coaches present the importance of the fundamentals of coaching through a detailed presentation.
He also encouraged the coaches to make use of Cricket SA’s online resources and tools programmes that have been made available specifically to further improve their coaching skills.
At the end of the seminar, all the volunteers and coaches were taken through their paces as they went through a KFC Mini-Cricket drill and practice game that was well enjoyed by the coaches and volunteers attending the seminar.
Easterns KFC Mini-Cricket coordinator Julius Maziya, who received his coordinator of the year blazer for his sterling work in the 2019/20 season, was optimistic about the season ahead.
“Events like these are important, as we get all the KFC Mini-Cricket coaches and volunteers, CSA and KFC representatives and other stakeholders together, which does not happen all that often.
“Last season was a difficult one due to the pandemic. It was so encouraging to get everyone together again. It was also enlightening to get feedback from various coaches. We are excited to get going for the 2021/22 season and have no doubt the most important recipients of the programme, the children, can’t wait to get on the field again,” said Maziya.
About KFC Mini-Cricket
KFC Mini-Cricket provides a platform for children in South Africa to have fun and get active. KFC Mini-Cricket is the largest grassroots development sports programme in South Africa and is also an essential building block for learning cricketing basics and entrenching a love for the game.
In the previous full season, 2019/20 there were over 126 000 children from over 6 600 schools active in the KFC Mini-Cricket programme who are coached by over 13 600 volunteer coaches.
Year on year there are a minimum of 45 000 matches played each year. KFC has sponsored KFC Mini-Cricket since 2010 and in the 2012/13 cricket season, KFC became the title sponsor of the KFC T20 Internationals.
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