April 11 2010: The Botswana Cricket Association (BCA) is currently hosting a holiday camp for government school children who have been registered as cricket players at the Gaborone cricket grounds.
The Camp, which was embarked by the BCA on the 7th of April this year, is to continue until the 27th when government school holidays come to an end. The programme has been an initiative of the BCA to give children more practicing hours during the holiday.
The programme will reportedly be running for four weeks. The holiday camp operates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturday mornings for both children and teachers.
According to the Botswana Cricket Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Girish Ramakrishna, the Saturday programme has been attracting quite a number of children from different parts of the country as it collides with the usual Saturday clinic.
“We can get as many as a 150 children to train on staurdays, but our schedules have also been interrupted by the rains. On weekdays, we get around 25 children or so but our target it between 70 and a 100,” said Ramakrishna.
He revealed that they have requested schools signed under the cricket program to bring about 15 boys and 10 girls from each school for training sessions during the holiday camp. He says that the BCA will also be holding the holiday camp for children within the eastern zone for two days a week at the Francistown Sports and Recreation Club.
Children within the western zone will also have Tuesdays and Thursdays a week as practice days at the Monarch school grounds.
The BCA also provided a list of schools in the northern region that are expecting to receive cricket free kits from the association. The schools named are, Satellite primary, Pelotshwane primary, Nyangabwe Primary, Phase IV Primary, Ikhutseng Primary, Maradu Primary, Mokaleng Primary, TKM College, Monarch and Tagala Primary.
This will be the second year that the BCA operates the holiday camp.
“The holiday camp has always been available for the kids who wanted to be able to improve their cricket skills during the holidays; we are quite impressed by the turnout,” said Ramakrishna.
