Photo © ECC

The Austrian Cricket Association has been going to great lengths to produce home-grown cricketers rather than relying on ex-patriots and their dependents. It is a policy that is paying off, as some half dozen members of the current national squad, all Austrian nationals, were introduced to the game while still at school.

As part of this development programme, ECC Coach Ralph Dellor recently paid a visit to Vienna to run an introductory coaching course for 10 physical education teachers who are in a position to introduce the game to at least 2000 schoolchildren immediately. The eventual number can only be a matter for speculation.

While these candidates were given ideas as to how to introduce cricket and cricket-related activities to their pupils, more than 60 teachers of English and sport took part in three cricket workshops at the Austrian Pedagogical Institute in Vienna as part of a biennial English Language Forum. The delegates were shown how to introduce youngsters to cricket by Ralph Dellor, Austria's Cricket Advisor, whose seminar covered warm-up games, competitive activities and Kwik Cricket. Ralph told those present:

Photo © ECC

"Millions of people all over the world love cricket for its excitement, strategy, great number of required skills and last, but not least, fun. The number of different skills involved in the game will ensure that everybody ń sporting talent or not ń will find a suitable task and derive fun and excitement from learning and teaching the game."

Karin Simpson-Parker, Youth Development Co-ordinator for the Austrian Cricket Association, then provided participants with information about the game itself, including a practical demonstration of how it is played, and the various ways the game and its background can be used in English and PE lessons, with particular emphasis on the use of English across the curriculum. She explained:

"Cricket demands excellent powers of concentration, fast reactions, stamina, clever strategic thinking and much more from its players. But cricket is much more than that. It is a philosophy, a code of conduct, to some it is even a religion. Some of cricket's technical terms have made their way into everyday English. It is an integral part of life in England, but the countries playing it best are Britain„s former colonies. Cricket and its background provide an abundance of material for the English classroom as well as PE lessons and projects in cultural studies."

Photo © ECC

All participants reacted positively to the workshops and vowed to introduce cricket into their school's sports curriculum. Cricket was perceived as a great activity for cross-curricular teaching (English-PE, English-Geography-History), as well as a rewarding topic for language studies and Internet research projects. Kwik Cricket sets, which had been sent by the ECC for the occasion, were presented to participants. The ACA recognises that only by motivating and supporting enthusiastic teachers will cricket be able to attract schoolchildren in sufficient numbers to consider itself a growing sport.