The Sunday News
Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter
EMAKHANDENI based Mtshingwe Primary School were the biggest winners of the two grassroots cricket tournaments that came to an end at the Old Mutual Academy of Cricket Excellence (former Heath Streak Academy) yesterday.
The Tyson Meki-coached Mtshingwe Primary School won the Old Mutual Colts Cricket Cup and the CABS Under-13 Cricket Cup to make it a memorable event for the school. In the Colts Cricket Cup, Mtshingwe recorded a 38 runs win over Old Mutual Academy Colts before the Emakhandeni based side went on to record a close four runs win over Old Mutual Academy as well in the Under-13s event.
The Mtshingwe Colts, batting first in the final, scored 66/1 in their innings before going on to restrict their opponents to 28/6 to claim the top honours. In the Under-13s final, the eventual champions, Mtshingwe restricted the Academy side to 39/2 while they had finished on 43/4 earlier on to help complete the double for their school.
In the Under-13s semi-final, the dominant Mtshingwe thumped Khumalo Primary School by 55 runs. Mtshingwe scored 67/1 in their innings before they went on to restrict their opponents to just 12/7. The tournament featured 16 schools and 32 teams as part of the Old Mutual Academy of Cricket Excellence Trust’s commemoration of 10 years of existence. The Trust’s president and board chairperson, Joseph Rego was impressed with the way things went throughout the duration of the tournament.
CABS, who are partners, through their managing director, Mehluli Mpofu said such a tournament was crucial to the growth of cricket in the country and it’s important to them as an organisation.
He added that they will continue supporting the growth of cricket in the country and other sports.
“It’s been a decade of supporting cricket. In this case, we are supporting the young, so it’s very developmental which obviously supports the growth of cricket in the country and particularly when you deal with disadvantaged people and give them an opportunity to actually grow in the sport.
“It becomes very important to us as a business because ultimately what we always say to ourselves is we ought to be supportive of the community that we operate in and that is one way of doing so.
“It’s important that we resume and as you can see here, there is lots of support from the schools. There are 16 schools with 32 teams and it’s important we give them a lot of support, cover as best as we can.
“The commitment that we are giving as CABS and Old Mutual Group is that we will continue to support cricket and we will continue to look for other opportunities to support grassroots cricket and in other sports we need to look at how we can play a part as well,” said Mpofu.
The tournament was also attended by Zanu-PF Politiburo member, Elifasi Mashaba, who is also the Trust’s vice-president and one of the founding fathers of the Academy in 2013.
Mashaba said the tournament was a step in the right direction in helping to grow the game of cricket. As a token of appreciation for their participation at the event, all the schools got two cricket balls.
Yesterday was not just a cricket event at the Old Mutual Academy of Cricket Excellence as they also organised a “Spring Fare and Fun Day” featuring different stalls, jumping castles and water slides for children, face painting, balloon making and many other activities for children and families. – Follow on Twitter @brandon_malvin.
