Mini-cricket hosts community festivals
Cricket South Africa (CSA) in partnership with KFC, will journey back to the grassroots and bring the 2023 Mini-Cricket festivals to local communities all around the country.
The KFC Mini-Cricket community festivals are held annually for children from the ages of 3-12 with the aim to introduce the sport in a fun and friendly way in the continued call to level the playing field and provide opportunities for all who want to play the game.
Last year, the programme celebrated a historic 40 years of its existence with a mega-festival that has record-breaking attendance and the number of matches played on the day.
KFC Mini-Cricket is a fun way for young boys and girls to learn the basics of cricket. The softball level game that teaches kids about batting, bowling, and fielding.
Recently, some changes were made, such as allowing girls up to 13 years old to participate and introducing pre-school mini-cricket for kids as young as 4 years old.
To continue from the successful 2022, the community festivals kicked-off earlier in February in Kamhlushwa Stadium, Ehlazeni in Mpumalanga, and Zinniaville Primary School, Bojanala West in the North West.
A week later, the festivals moved to the Western Cape, with Stephen Regen Stadium, on February 15 and Central 1 in Boland on two days after as the programme continues to spread across to all 16 CSA affiliates.
CSA’s Mass Participation Manager, David Mokopanele, said Mini-Cricket prides itself with being one of South Africa’s premier development programmes, with an impact that goes beyond the cricket field.
“The programme has unearthed household professional cricketers and administrators to be astute citizens, and ardent cricket fans. This year, instead of utilising the main provincial stadia, the festivals will move back to grassroots in community fields with hopes that we reach every kid in the country to provide them with opportunity to play the sport.
“We want to elongate our story 40 years on and celebrate the programme whilst we continue to build the stars of tomorrow,” said Mokopanele.
Cricket hype is currently at an all-time high in South Africa and it is now time for our kids to shine, believes Andra Nel, KFC Marketing Manager Brand and Purpose, said: “Our kids have been watching first-class cricket at its best over the past month, and the KFC Mini-Cricket Community Festivals allow the professionals and selectors a platform to glance into the future.
Our community festivals are unique in that the playing field is levelled and our children can play together no matter where they come, and they get a chance to cast aside any challenges they might be facing.
We are proud to be a partner in cricket that affords our youth with an opportunity to play the game they love and gives them a chance to dream and achieve goals.” he concluded.
Mini-cricket is a popular program that has attracted over 2 million children so far.
The KFC Mini-Cricket has over 120 000 kids participating in the programme annually.
For more information on the KFC Mini-Cricket programme, visit https://cricket.co.za/mini-cricket/