Report to KZNCU Council – 08 October 2009

The following structures have been put into place within our sub-union: senior cricket, high schools and primary schools, coaches forum, women’s cricket, development committee and umpires. I believe that the past season was for us the most successful since the launch of the union. This is both in terms of administration as well as our performance on the field ie. in the KwaZulu Natal Women’s and Promotion Leagues, including the individual performances of our players within these leagues and the selection of our players into the KZN Provincial teams. We also had for the first time a South African U/19 cap. Thanks to our many volunteers who sacrifice their time and work tirelessly in making our activities a success.

Annual Awards Function

Our 13th Annual Awards Function held on Saturday, 25th July 2009 at the Umzinto Community Hall was a tremendous success. On behalf of the executive and council of Umzinto & Districts Cricket Union, I would like to place on record our sincere thanks and appreciation to officials from KZNCU Mr. A.K. Khan, Mr. Ernest Molotsi, Dr. Sajeel Maharaj and Mr. Faeez Jaffer for gracing our function with their presence. Thanks to Jay Naidoo for negotiating with Dolphin Player Yusuf Abdullah to attend the Awards Function. Sincere thanks and appreciation to Yusuf for the sacrifices he made to be with us. His presence at the function was not only used to market the Dolphins in the south coast but also to provide encouragement and motivation to the many young cricketers hoping to one day follow in his footsteps.

Annual General Meeting

Our annual general meeting was held on 29th July 2009. A new executive committee of 9 members was elected.

Executive Meetings are held monthly and Council Meetings once every two months.

Bakers Mini Cricket

Bakers Mini Cricket is the core of our development programme: We currently have centres in Umkomaas, Park Rynie and in Umzinto. These centres operate throughout the year including the winter months. Regular matches are played between these centers.

We participated in all Bakers Mini Cricket events organised by Cricket South Africa and KwaZulu Natal Cricket Union. Our Annual Bakers Mini Cricket Festival will be held in May 2010.

Primary Schools Cricket

Our primary schools league is played at the beginning of the year. The committee held a meeting last month and commenced with planning for an U/13 and U/11 league. We expect to have fourteen schools affiliated to our Primary Schools structure. Teams will also include girls.

Umzinto participated in all the tournaments hosted by KZN and will also be sending a team to the girls U/13 tournament.

Thanks to Durban & District Cricket Union for allowing our representative U/11, U/13 and U/15 teams to play in their Youth Leagues this season. This definitely helps with the development of our youngsters.

High Schools Cricket

This has thus far been our greatest challenge. A meeting was held with our co-ordinator to look at ways of increasing the number of schools participating in this league. In the past season we had four teams in the U/15 league, three schools and a fourth team made up of players from other non-participating schools. We also had three teams participating in an open division schools league. The High Schools league will commence this month.

We participated in the high schools KZN Trials. Prineshan Pillay was selected into the KZN U/15 invitation team. We also participated in the KZN Rural U/17 trials winning all the matches we played.

Intellectually Impaired

The Schola Amoris School for intellectually impaired learners play in our U/13 Primary Schools League.

Senior Cricket

We currently have ten senior clubs affiliated to UDCU, Correctional Services, Saints, Crescents, Park Rynie, Braemar, Klippies, PG CC Scottburgh, Old Boys, Maverick and Syms. They compete in our domestic two round league, a knockout competition and a T/20 tournament. This season five teams will play in our domestic premier league and six in the challenge league.

The Umzinto senior men’s team won the KwaZulu Natal Promotion League last season and will be playing in the Challenge League this season.

Our U/19 team played in the UGU Municipal Games in preparation for the Kwanaloga Games taking place in December.

Women’s Cricket

We are in the process of recruiting more girls into our local women’s structure thereby re-launching our women’s league. We have a team affiliated to the KwaZulu Natal Cricket Union Women’s league. Our women’s team won the KwaZulu Natal Cricket Union Women’s league last season.

One of our girls Chloe Tryon was selected into the South African U/19 team and also played for KZN over the past season.

Umpires

Of the 11 individuals who wrote the umpires examination five passed and have been standing in our domestic matches. In total we currently have eight certified umpires.

We hosted a successful workshop on the laws of the game on Saturday, 26th September 2009. Thanks to Kevin Adams and to the facilitator Sagren Naidoo for an excellent programme. The twenty-five participants benefited tremendously from the workshop and have indicated that they will welcome more sessions of this nature.

Challenges

Facilities
With us not having a municipal facility in Umzinto we are forced to hire the ICC ground to play our cricket at a cost of R3 500.00 per month during season and R2 000.00 per month off-season. This amount excludes the preparation of the pitch and maintaining of the field ie. mowing of the grass and the general upkeep of the ground. I must admit that this is putting a strain on our finances and is making it very costly for us to continue providing cricket.

Co-ordinator

Volunteers do all the coaching, cricketing programmes, activities and administration. We do not have a co-ordinator, which makes our attempts to reach out to the rural schools and the coaching and administration so much more difficult. When programmes and activities are organized during the week, then our volunteers are forced to take leave of work to manage such activities. Hopefully this will be addressed by KZNCU soon.