Brit coaches to train six Chinese cricketers

Tuesday, 3 April 2012 00:09 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

London (ANI): To learn techniques and to inspire Chinese children to take up the sport, six young and gifted Chinese cricketers will spend this summer in London, working alongside experienced British coaches in hundreds of state schools.

Their hosts will be a charity called Capital Kids Cricket, whose coaches have taught more than a million inner-city children the skills and thrills of the game.

“If these trainees are able to be further developed as cricketers thanks to Capital Kids Cricket it will be a major boost to them, Chinese cricket and, I hope, the game as a whole,” said Syed Ashraful Huq, chief executive of the Asian Cricket Council.

The six selected youngsters, three men and three women, have already shown themselves to be cricketers of outstanding potential, Xinhua reports.

Zhang Yufei and Li Jian are both all rounders, fast bowlers and middle-order batsmen with international experience in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and Song Yangyang is a specialist batsman and current Chinese U-19 captain.

Cricket is Britain’s national summer sport, its survival at school level in heavily populated inner-city areas was under severe threat when Capital Kids Cricket was launched as a charity 22 years ago.

Since then the game has been restored to the curriculum of more than half London’s 2,000 state schools and its formula has been reproduced in many other cities around the land.