THE countdown is now underway for this year’s edition of the Stanbic Stragglers Junior Cricket Week, a week-long festival held annually at Hartmann House and St George’s College every August school holidays, with a thrust to nurture young talent.
BY SPORTS REPORTERS
This year’s edition of the tournament has been slated for August 28 to September 1 with registration for budding players from grades 4 to 7 expected to begin next month.
Having started more than 60 years ago by Spencer Parker, a local architect, Stragglers junior cricket development festival has grown into one of the country’s prime junior cricket development programmes.
Last year’s edition of the Stanbic Stragglers Junior Cricket Week featured over 300 budding junior cricketers aged between 9 and 12 and saw teams from cricket development areas such as Mabvuku, Highfield, Glen View, Shamva, Bindura and Chitungwiza participating alongside children from various other schools.
Zimbabwe national cricket team captain Graeme Cremer attended the event to inspire the younger cricket generation. Cremer applauded Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe and Stragglers organisers for playing a big part in nurturing the talent of “the future of Zimbabwe cricket”.
“Stragglers Junior Cricket is the best way to identify and nurture talent. This has demonstrated that there is a high level of interest in cricket and the number of participants speaks for themselves. I must say hats off to Stanbic Bank who have been excellent once again and we need more big corporates to come on board.
“The gesture by Stanbic Bank is all the more commendable when one looks at the prevailing economic challenges,” said Cremer, adding that Zimbabwe was endowed with exceptional cricket talent.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Stragglers Junior Cricket Week affords children from all over the country an opportunity to play during the holidays and have some fine-tuning of their skills through coaching.
Tournament organiser Win Ives said the junior cricket week had played a big part in feeding the country’s national teams with some players in the current Under-16 and Under-19 teams having participated at the annual junior cricket development event.
The week-long event sees grade 4 and 5 cricketers playing in the morning and the grade 6 and 7s in the afternoon.
The junior cricket development event is held once a year during the August school holidays and brings together children from different backgrounds for a week of cricket coaching.
The players are placed into teams named after cricketing countries — Zimbabwe, West Indies, India, England, Australia, and Sri Lanka, to name a few.
Each Country challenges a different country every day during the week in limited overs matches. All cricketers are rotated and every player has a chance to bat and bowl. Certificates are awarded to high achieving cricketers.
