SportGibraltar

Youth cricket update

Although the adult cricket season may have finished in early October there has been an enormous amount of youth activity over the last few months. As well as making senior cricket more accessible for our Twenty20 cricketers and those unable to commit to regular Saturday games, it has been clearly identified that increasing the numbers of young players is a key objective in developing Gibraltar cricket.

Many of our schools have already taken advantage of a rolling program of six week cricket sessions that have enabled pupils to try the sport, increase their skills and take part in competitive games. Other schools will be coming onboard in the New Year and it is anticipated that hundreds of young people will have tried cricket by the time the summer comes around.

In the week before Christmas Bayside School will be holding their Christmas Cricket festival for those Year 8 boys that have been training and playing this term. With 8 teams taking part for a whole afternoon and their classmates cheering on from the sidelines this promises to be great entertainment and we hope that it will carry through to other Year groups next term. There is also interest in inter-house leagues throughout the year groups next term.

Similarly, St.Anne’s School will hold a festival for teams from both Years 6 and 7 who have been playing this term. Again, around 8 teams will be taking part and we intend to repeat the competition in the Spring term with the extra classes who will start their cricket next year.

Bayside’s cricket nets on Friday lunchtimes have proved popular, so much so that we may have to split the players into several groups and hold these practices over three sessions! The fact that so many boys are adapting to the challenges of the hard ball game is very promising in terms of the selections to be made for the Under 15 Championships, to be held in Italy in 2009.

This year we will also have district cricket for the first time. The system is designed to allow the more enthusiastic and talented players from their junior club sides to play indoor league games and then progress to an outdoor league at Under 11, 13 and 15 age groups.

The district set-up is intended to accelerate players into representative junior cricket at an earlier age and into adult cricket when they are ready and feel comfortable to do so. Players taking part in the training program have tackled basic skills and drills before moving into applying those skills in game situations. They are currently adapting to the hard ball they will be using in the league and the improvements they are making are very impressive indeed.

In the New Year we will be restarting our Girl’s cricket program with curriculum sessions in Westside School and the after-school club as last year. Running along similar lines to the Bayside scheme we will be looking to establish inter-house leagues and get girls ready for a summer league program of hard ball cricket.

This is one of the most exciting aspects of Gibraltar’s development program as the opportunities for girls and their coaches to take part in European cricket has never been better and the groundwork that we put in now to build on the enthusiasm shown last year will be crucial to allow them to play to the best of their abilities.

All-in-all, these have been a very busy few months and, with the extra schools joining in next year, the workload will only increase. Cricket is a fantastic sport for offering anyone taking part some kind of satisfaction and a great deal of enjoyment, whatever their level of ability or skill.

It may seem to those passing the Victoria Stadium grounds that on any given day during daylight hours there is a game of cricket going on. When you consider the other schools involved this is very definitely true and it often carries on into the evening with the indoor practices for district squads! By harnessing natural athleticism and a competitive nature to a sound development program, many young people are improving as players and having great fun all at the same time.


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