Over 900 kids from all four of the municipal regions of the North West got together with Lions players, Craig Alexander and Beuran Hendricks at Die Wilge High School in Potchefstroom for the annual North West KFC Mini-Cricket Provincial Festival on Saturday, 22 September.
Cricket South Africa set the benchmark for all provincial festivals in South Africa at 800 kids but the North West Province exceeded expectations and had over 900 children getting active and playing KFC Mini-Cricket at the festival.
What was really noticeable about the festival was the quality of the cricket that was played. Nation Ntlame, the KFC Mini-Cricket coordinator for the North West, attributed the quality of play to the fact that the union and all his regional coordinators have spent time upskilling the coaches and making sure the kids get decent coaching.
‘There is a programme in place that was started at the coordinators meeting earlier this year. We are going to have roadshows at all the schools to equip our coaches with the necessary coaching resources. Then we will host regional festivals and zone festivals where we can identify teams that have been well coached. These are the teams on display at our Provincial KFC Mini-Cricket Festival today,’ said Nation.

The North West Cricket union got their regional coaches, provincial coaches and their women’s team that attended the festival to assist in coaching the kids and to identify talent. Those selected will be invited to a high-performance camp and will then become part of the Cricket SA hub system.
One of the strengths of the Northerns KFC Mini-Cricket programme is the participation of girls. Not only were there a lot of them at the festival but a lot of them also played the game extremely well.
‘With the introduction of girls’ cricket in the Cricket SA youth cricket weeks, there has been an increased interest from the girls at the schools to start playing cricket. They get introduced to the game via KFC Mini-Cricket,’ said Nation. ‘All of the girls who play in the u.13 week come from the KFC Mini-Cricket programme and have recently been introduced to hardball cricket.’
Alexander and Hendricks were surprised at the quality of cricket at the festival.
‘One of the girls has a beautiful bowling and batting style and is extremely talented. My advice to her is to keep doing what she is doing and keep learning about the game. She was very excited to learn from us and that is encouraging to see,’ said Beuran