13 Feb KFC Mini-Cricket Introduces Community Festivals
JOHANNESBURG: Cricket South Africa (CSA) in partnership with KFC, will journey back to the grassroots and bring the 2023 Mini-Cricket festivals to local communities all around the country.
The KFC Mini-Cricket community festivals are held annually for children from the ages of 3-12 with the aim to introduce the sport in a fun and friendly way in the continued call to level the playing field and provide opportunities for all who want to play the game.
In 2022, the CSA Mini-Cricket celebrated 40 years of its existence with a mega-festival that broke the programmes records with attendance and the number of matches played on the day.
To continue from a record-breaking 2022, the community festivals kicked-off this past week in Kamhlushwa Stadium, Ehlazeni in Mpumalanga on Friday, and Zinniaville Primary School, Bojanala West in the North West on Saturday.
This week the festivals move to the Western Cape, with Stephen Regen Stadium, Mitchells Plain, on Wednesday, 15 February 2023 and Central 1 in Boland on Friday as the programme continues to spread across to all 16 CSA affiliates.
CSA’s Mass Participation Manager, David Mokopanele, said;
“KFC Mini-Cricket prides itself with being one of South Africa’s premier development programmes, with an impact that goes beyond the cricket field.
“The programme has unearthed household professional cricketers and administrators to be astute citizens, and ardent cricket fans.
“This year, instead of utilising the main provincial stadia, the festivals will move back to grassroots in community fields with hopes that we reach every kid in the country to provide them with opportunity to play the sport.
“We want to elongate our story 40 years on and celebrate the programme whilst we continue to build the stars of tomorrow,” said Mokopanele.
Cricket hype is currently at an all-time high in South Africa and it is now time for our kids to shine, believes Andra Nel, KFC Marketing Manager Brand and Purpose, said: “Our kids have been watching first-class cricket at its best over the past month, and the KFC Mini-Cricket Community Festivals allow the professionals and selectors a platform to glance into the future. Our community festivals are unique in that the playing field is levelled and our children can play together no matter where they come, and they get a chance to cast aside any challenges they might be facing. We are proud to be a partner in cricket that affords our youth with an opportunity to play the game they love and gives them a chance to dream and achieve goals.”
For more information on the KFC Mini-Cricket programme, visit https://cricket.co.za/mini-cricket/
ENDS
Issued by: Cricket South Africa – Corporate Communications
ABOUT CRICKET SOUTH AFRICA
Cricket South Africa (CSA), an affiliate of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) and a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC), is the national governing body for the sport of cricket in South Africa and administers all aspects of South African cricket, men, and women, both in the professional and amateur sphere.
ABOUT KFC MINI-CRICKET
KFC, through their sponsorship of the KFC Mini-Cricket programme, level the playing field and supply kids an opportunity to have fun and get active no matter their background. KFC Mini-Cricket kids, coaches and coordinators have been able to make a serious impact in their communities and become respected leaders. KFC Mini-Cricket is one of the largest grassroots development sports programmes in South Africa and is also an essential building block for learning cricketing basics and entrenching a love for the game.
The KFC Mini-Cricket has over 120 000 kids participating in the programme. The kids (boys and girls) are from over 5500 schools that are active in the KFC Mini-Cricket programme and are coached by just under 13000 volunteer coaches. Year on year there are a minimum of 45 000 matches played each year. KFC has sponsored KFC Mini-Cricket since 2010 and in the 2012/13 cricket season KFC became the title sponsor of the KFC T20 Internationals.