More than 3000 children took advantage of the sun and sand when Sporting Chance hosted the 22nd edition of the Sporting Chance Calypso Cricket Festival from Monday 10 December 2012 until Friday 14 December 2012 at Main Beach Strand, Sunrise Beach in Muizenberg and on Long Beach in Kommetjie. Held in association with Taquanta Investment Holdings, Virgin Active, SuperSport Let’s Play, Maurits van Nierop Foundation, Groupon South Africa, Rotary Club and Pick n Pay Western Cape, Calypso Cricket was born from a desire to introduce large numbers of kids to cricket and bring together various communities and cultures in South Africa.
The spirit of Calypso also comes on the back of the West Indies’ recent triumph at the Champions League T20, which is testament to their natural flair being well suited in the shorter version of the game. The flamboyance of Calypso, the richness of reggae music and the whistle of the waves as they play cricket on the beach, has seen the Caribbean produce some of the world’s best cricketers. Having come of age celebrating 21 years in 2011, the focus of this year’s festival was talent identification and looking for raw talent and flair to match some of the greats from the Caribbean Islands.
“Calypso Cricket has proven a popular way of introducing children from some of our emerging communities to cricket,” states Brad Bing of Sporting Chance. “It has also given us the platform to identify talent, where more than 40 players have gone on to play provincial cricket at school level.”
Proteas’ wicketkeeper, Thami Tsolekile, was one of the first participants of the Calypso Cricket Festival in its inaugural year in 1991. Tsolekile, who was part of the series-winning Proteas’ tour of Australia last month, said Calypso paved the way for his career.
“I had no idea where it [Calypso] would take me, but I can say now that all those experiences contributed to where I am today.”
Meanwhile Western Province and Springboks centre Juan de Jongh was at Calypso to encourage hard work as the key to the development of this talent. “I would work hard every time I got the opportunity because I had a goal – I wanted to achieve something – and the only way to achieve something is by working hard and not quitting.”
More than just a day at the beach, the Calypso Cricket Festival is used as an incentive at the end of the academic year and is part of Sporting Chance’s determination to encourage sport and physical activity as a fixture in all children’s lives, irrespective of race, gender or social class and to create an uplifting environment to bring together various communities.
For Dan Plato, Minister of Community Safety in the Western Cape, Calypso is about partnering with organisations like Sporting Chance to keep our children safe.
“The festive season is a time when children are especially vulnerable as they often stay at home alone when their parents need to go to work. The Western Cape government has a number of programmes to keep our children safe, but we need all the hands we can get to address this challenge, and NGOs like Sporting Chance do excellent work in this regard. Through sport, Brad Bing and his team are offering our youth an alternative to anti-social behaviour and providing them with a healthy lifestyle choice!”
Calypso is a unique and fun adaptation of the conventional game. Employing most of the rules of cricket, it is played on the beach with two teams of ten players each and includes both boys and girls.
Participation in the programme is from the age of eight to 14, offering learners the opportunity to engage in a healthy and fun-filled lifestyle throughout those critical, formative years.