The International Cricket Council (ICC) Global Cricket Academy's junior cricket coaching programme, which commenced in Dubai on Saturday, has received tremendous response.
The ICC initiative, in partnership with Dubai Sports City and supported by Gulf News, Al Tayer Motors and Ford Motor Company, aims to spot and train budding youngsters.
Parents, who turned up with their children, welcomed the initiative.
"It is very important to learn the basics of the game correctly. This is the reason why we have focused on providing coaching to kids between the ages of 5-12 years during this 10-week coaching programme," Marc Archer, general manager of the ICC Global Cricket Academy, told Gulf News.
"We have decided to go to the schools as part of our plans to develop community cricket. Our coaches are highly-qualified former Test stars like Rodney Marsh, Mudassar Nazar and Dayle Hadlee.
"They are coaches who have coached the leading cricketers around the world and it is a big boon that they could be made available to teach the basics to young children here."
The ICC Global Academy picked Deira International School at the Festival City to start off their junior programme.
"By staging the camp at the Deira School it was easy for children living even in Sharjah to easily come over and attend the sessions. Specialised training is being given on batting, bowling and fielding techniques so that they will play the game correctly and emerge as good players which in the long run will benefit cricket in UAE," Archer said.
This junior coaching camp will move to Abu Dhabi from March 12.
"We are staging the coaching sessions at Al Yasmina School in Khalifa City. We would also hold camps in more schools so that good cricket coaching is available for young children. As soon as our global academy facilities are ready then we will plan of providing coaching to children from age 12 to 18," Archer said.
According to Archer the recent T20 World Cup qualifiers and international matches held in UAE have generated a lot of interest among the youngsters.
"We had eight teams playing from different parts of the world in the T20 qualifiers and we also had England, Pakistan and their A teams playing here. This generated a lot of interest among youngsters and we were flooded with a lot of enquiries from parents wanting their children to learn the basics of the game. Around 350 children will benefit by our 10-week junior coaching programme," he said.
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