Schools SA20 to include townships

CSA CEO Pholetsi Moseki says he wants township schools to be involved in the new Schools SA20. KHUNULOGO MPOLOKENG reports.

The Schools SA20 was launched in Johannesburg on Monday, where it was confirmed that over 370 boys’ school teams and more than 200 girls’ school teams will participate between September and March.

Moseki is proud of his organisation’s new player development initiative, which he hopes will help them achieve their development goals in more areas of the country.

Moseki said it’s important for such development programmes to also reach schools that are located in areas in which cricket is not as popular as other sports are.

“I am very proud because we’ve been working on this thing for quite a while. The last schools tournament was about five years ago, so we’ve been working hard in the last year because we wanted to bring it back. And after a five-year break, you have to make sure that you return with all guns blazing and even bigger and better, having even more schools.

“We don’t want for it to only be the schools in town that participate, but also the schools that we went to in townships like Moletsane and Tembisa, and I believe that with the partnership we have [with SuperSport Schools], we’re going to achieve that.”

Moseki said re-introducing cricket in schools via a T20 competition is an effort to inspire schoolchildren to participate in their numbers.

“We’ll always have schools that play three-day and 50-over games, but [the Schools SA20] is to broaden the number of schools that are in the system.

“This is also going to encourage the schools that are just starting out, including the girls schools. We want to see even more girls schools include cricket in their activities, instead of having just hockey and netball – we want cricket to be an alternative for them.

“Normally, after [exposure to] the T20s, you end up getting into the other formats, so hopefully, before we even know it we’ll have more schools playing 50-over and three-day games.”