KFC is actively involved in finding tomorrow’s Protea stars with their Mini-cricket programme.
Recently, KFC had a KFC Mini-Cricket kids v Proteas Tour, where three schools got the opportunity to play their Proteas heroes im warm up ganes ahead of the three Twenty20 Internationals against the West Indies
The concept is an initiative from KFC to introduce kids at primary school level to cricket.
On the 9th January the KFC Mini-Cricket kids got active against a Proteas selection team as a curtain raiser to the KFC T20 International between the South Africa and the West Indies. The KFC Mini-Cricket kids won the toss and batted first. The kids put on a great display by hitting 86 runs in their 8 overs thanks to a last partnership of 37 between Jenovan Rogers and Lucen Valentine. The chase was too big for the Proteas and thanks to some aggressive bowling and good fielding the Proteas only managed to score 53 runs. Jenovan Rogers was the man of the match thanks to his 16 runs and 2/12 in the over that he bowled.
On the 11th January the KFC Mini-Cricket kids got active against a Proteas selection team as a curtain raiser to the KFC T20 International between the South Africa and the West Indies at the Wanderers. The Proteas won the toss and batted first. The Proteas team was chosen as more of a batting team since that is what was lacking in the first game in Cape Town. JP Duminy, Reeza Hendricks, Wayne Parnell, Mignon du Preez, Sune Luus and Andrie Steyn are all fantastic batters whilst Kagiso Rabada and Yolani Steyn are more known for their bowling. The Proteas put on a great display by hitting 70 runs in their 8 overs with all the batters chipping in, Mignon du Preez top scoring with 12 . The KFC Mini-Cricket kids were in the game until the last ball but they eventually fell 1 run short. The Proteas were a far more polished team in the field even though Francois Steyn tried as hard as what he could to knock off the runs with a well played 13. Lincoln Engelbrecht was the man of the match due to a fantastic bowling performance.
On the 14th January the KFC Mini-Cricket kids got active against a Proteas selection team in the final KFC Mini-Cricket kids vs Proteas tour match as a curtain raiser to the KFC T20 International between the South Africa and the West Indies at Kingsmead. Going into the match the series was tied at 1 each with the KFC Mini-Cricket kids winning the first game in Cape Town and the Proteas winning the second game in Johannesburg.
The Proteas captain for the game JP Duminy won the toss and decided to field first. Shivam Iyer, the KFC Mini-Cricket kids captain, said that they did not mind if they batted or bowled first because they are a good all round team and they can setup a total and chase down a total equally well.
The KFC Mini-Cricket kids got off to a good start and managed to maintain their scoring rate up throughout the match and managed to set a total of 63 in their 8 overs. Daniel Johnson scored 13 and Otsile Ntsele scored 10.
The Proteas never really got going. Only Hashim Amla got into double figures scoring 10 runs in the Proteas total of 60 in their 8 overs. The KFC Mini-Cricket kids were extremely hapy with their performance in the serried having beaten the Dolphins in the warm up game and the Proteas in the main match.
Daniel Johnson was man of the match with a good all round performance especially his batting.
KFC South Africa Marketing Director Lizanne Bartlett says: “A huge congratulations to the winning kids and their teams who entered the KFC Mini-Cricket Kids vs Proteas Tour competition from across the country. We had over 2850 entries, which is exceptional! KFC is really excited about this season’s winners and our esteemed Assistant Coaches who will prepare the winning teams for the biggest game of their lives.”
Lauren Turnbull, Sponsorship and SCR manager for KFC explains the idea behinfd the Mini-cricket concept.” Mini-cricket is a great development programme used to introduce young children to cricket. KFC has sponsored KFC Mini-Cricket since 2010 . There are currently over 107 000 kids active in the KFC Mini-Cricket programme who are coached by over 8000 volunteers. The main objective to why we continue to support the sport is we believe in cricket development and getting kids active in one of SA’s biggest sport. Working closely with our partner, Cricket South Africa, we are proud to create opportunities for our young cricketers to meet and engage with their cricketing heroes.”