Edo Cricket Association targets 5,000 students for grooming

Edo Cricket Association has set a target of mentoring and grooming 5,000 students in 10 selected schools in the state under its “Catch them Young” age-grade programme.

Theophilus Ibodeme, Age-Grade Coach of Edo Cricket Association, disclosed this to newsmen in Benin on Tuesday.

“The programme, which is being executed as part of the association’s ‘Edo Schools Cricket Quarterly Outreach’, will last for seven days, starting from Wednesday and ending on July 7.

“The programme will see the association visiting two schools each day and with a target of introducing the game to 500 students in each school,” Ibodeme, who is also the Regional Development Officer for Grassroots Development at the Nigeria Cricket Federation, said.

He added that the procedure in the association’s primary and secondary schools programme was to catch the athletes young and groom them to stardom.

“When you introduce the game to them in the early stage, they can build up a better future in the game,” the coach said.

Ibodeme, while adding that the outreach was entering its second edition since the inaugural one in November 2016, noted that the 2016 programme’s success has been very clear.

He said this has been evident in the state’s dominance of Nigerian cricket’s age-grade cadre.

“Edo is number one in Nigeria’s under-15 and under-17 cricket. At the last under-15 games in Ilorin, Edo won four gold medals, two each in the male and female categories.

“The same goes for the National Youth Games where Edo won gold in the male and female events.

“These results that you are seeing today are the fallout of the maiden coaching clinic held in 2016.

“The discoveries we made from that clinic are the ones dominating the sport now, not only in the state but the country at large, and you now have some of them already playing at the national level,” Ibodeme stated.