Cricket: Schools stepping up to the crease again

A GENERATION and more has passed since cricket was played in state secondary schools in Perth & Kinross, but the local Live Active cricket development officer Kirsteen Ross is bucking the trend.

She has set up and started running extra-curricular school cricket clubs at six of the county's secondary schools to date.

Since the start of the academic year, boys and girls at Perth Grammar, Perth Academy, Perth High, Kinross High and St John's Academy have been learning the game, with Blairgowrie High taking it up in October.

The objective is to offer pupils the chance to play a fun, but still competitive team sport which encompasses a wide variety of skills and disciplines as well as tactical aspects. It is also hoped that the project will create Active School partnerships with schools and clubs, thus providing a sustainable platform to build local club cricket for years to come.

Ross has recruited a team of Live Active cricket coaches to deliver a co-ordinated progressive skills program ranging from the basics to more advanced play. The school sessions are free and open to all regardless of experience and all equipment is provided.

She said: "It is very important to have consistency in the coaches delivering sessions so we can get to know all the players we work with and so we can assess weekly improvements in ability.

"Additionally, we can ensure that talented players fromthe school clubs are identified and fed into the newly-formed Area performance pathway which is a partnership between Live Active Cricket and the Perth & Kinross Cricket Development Group. Already, four girls and two boys who have not been involved in club cricket have been invited to the Area squads and are proving to be very capable additions.

"Such talent would otherwise have been lost or gone unnoticed had the new school teams not been created."

Players are experiencing the benefits beyond the games hall as they get to know people in the years above and below themselves - helping to widen their social circle by involving boys and girls they might otherwise not have got to know.

Ross said: "Teachers have commented how positive it is that some students and young people who have not participated in other traditional school sport activities are finding their place in the school team and discovering new talents for themselves, which helps to build confidence and self-esteem."The beauty of the game of cricket is that players can be good at batting or bowling or fielding or all three and the skills are so diverse that everyone finds that they are good at something regardless of shape, size or fitness."

Several inter-school indoor tournaments are planned for next February and March in Perth at Bells Sports Centre and outdoors in May and June at Doo'cot Park and the recently re-laid pitch at the North Inch.

The recently-completed Kinross High School at Loch Leven Community Campus has its own pitch incorporated into the playing fields to reflect the large local interest in the game and the strength of the local club.

Despite the onset of winter, numbers attending the school sessions have been well into double figures and this looks likely to dramatically increase in the summer term.