A KFC mini cricket festival, which is intended to introduce young players to cricket, was held in Alexandra on August 22.

The event, hosted by Alexandra Cricket Club, formed part of a broader push to give the sport a foothold in a community where it remains far less popular than other sports.

The festival attracted the participation of multiple primary schools, including Iphuteng, Bramley, M.C Weiler, Ekukhanyisweni, and Dr Knak, among others, and was sponsored by KFC and the Central Gauteng Lions.

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Chairperson of the Alexandra Cricket Club, Thabang Selamolela, emphasised that early exposure to the sport is important. “Early development in children, for us, creates early discipline, and discipline is easy to carry out into your teenage years,” Selamolela said.

“We intend to now have a competition where all the primary schools can be able to compete.”

Cricket’s low profile in Alexandra masks the impact organisers believe it has already had and the potential they say it still holds. Selamolela said unlike football, rugby and netball, which remain more accessible entry points for youth, cricket demands more from those who want to play it.

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“The sport in itself is very complicated to play compared to rugby and football, where you use your hands or your feet. Here, you use everything,” he explained.

Cost compounds the difficulty. Where football and rugby can be picked up with minimal equipment, cricket has historically been a sport for those with means.

“Just a normal [cricket] bat of a teenager cost you thousands of rands. So, we know that reality, but our success as the Alexandra Cricket Club far dwarfs other sports,” he noted.

That success, he said, shows up in the bursaries several of the club’s players have secured, opening doors to better-resourced schools, despite its limited infrastructure in Alexandra.

Cricket Hub head coach Dan Phaka noted that since the schools do not have facilities and resources, it makes it increasingly difficult to find children who know the basics.

But despite this, the young players are growing. “They are feeding the club; other children can come to practices, and they graduate from KFC mini-cricket to hard ball cricket.”

The Alex-based club is still recovering from a body blow dealt by the Covid-19 pandemic. Selamolela said that during the pandemic, all their resources disappeared and the knock-on effects were severe.

“So maintenance, the ability to have these events, started to deteriorate. This then led to a series of events: we lost quality coaches because they took up the private lessons with kids. After all, our clubs couldn’t be sustained.”

Now, they want to rebuild the club, and for Selamolela, rebuilding means getting every primary school in the area involved and restoring the club’s teenage divisions from the ground up.

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