GALLERY: Cricket star inspires young hopefuls
VIDEO: “He taught them what to do to become the best in the sport.”
The Northern’s KFC Mini-Cricket kicked off on Saturday morning with more than 1 500 young children participating in the festival.
The festival was held at TUT’s sport grounds of the Pretoria West campus, with over 100 schools attending, including Mamelodi, Hammanskraal and Eersterust.
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Provincial coordinator Kagiso Masubelele told Rekord that the KFC Mini Cricket team had not finished counting all the children who had participated.
“But their participation was overwhelming, we are hoping to attract more children to join in the next coming months,” he said.
Masubelele said there had been almost an equal representation of girl children interested in the sport in recent years as boys.
“A few changes were made to certain elements within the programme, including extending the age of girls participating to 13,” he said.
Masubulele said there was also an introduction of pre-school mini-cricket for children of four years of age.
“In Cricket SA’s bid to make cricket a truly national sport of winners and accessible to all, the organisation also introduced mini-cricket for the differently-abled people.”
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More than 105 000 children have participated in the programme around the country since inception 35 years ago, while the number of coaches and schools has increased to nearly 8 000 and 4 800 respectively.
The programme had since grown, impacting the lives of young children who saw themselves as future cricketers playing for big clubs.
Proteas and Titans Fast Bowler Lungi Ngidi (20) said: “When I started out, we were quite few who were interested in the sport but it is really great to see that over 1 500 children are attending,”
“He coached them to play better and told them what to do to become the best in the sport,” said Masubelele.
KFC Mini-Cricket spokesperson Shawn Bellugi said KFC was involved in the KFC Mini-Cricket to encourage kids to live active lifestyles.
“KFC Mini-Cricket forms a critical foundation step in the development of South Africa’s future cricketing heroes and is the first step in Cricket SA’s ‘pipeline to the Proteas’,” he said adding that 23 128 games were played during the the year.
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