FRIDAY, 12.30PM:
The United Cricket Board of South Africa’s director of development, Hoosain Ayob, will leave at the end of September to join the International Cricket Council. This follows his appointment to spearhead the development of the game in Africa.
Ayob’s task is to spread cricket in 14 African countries where a sound base had already been indentified. He said countries like Sierra Leone had shown the desire to start playing the game. He will also go to countries like Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia, Ghana, Swaziland, Namibia, Malawi and Lesotho.
Ayob said his objective for the first year will be to introduce mini-cricket to the youngsters. “We believe we can get up to 1 200 youngsters at the clinics we plan to hold in most of those countries,” he said. “And that will lay a very solid base. There are scores of children in all those countries very eager to start playing the game.”
He will start in Swaziland, where he says the game has died. “There are some few expatriates who still play at a few clubs, but you must understand that our focus is at getting indigenous people playing,” said Ayob.