We’re in to the second week of the project now and, on paper at least, it looks mostly downhill. We’re back at the Rift Valley Sports Club here in Nakuru, staying in adequate surroundings with a cricket pitch right outside our bedroom doors.
Today was a competition day for loads of local schools, organised by our former Kenyan superstar David Asiji. We were basically required to umpire & score a load of 8aside cricket matches. Some of the children had only been playing the game for a week and some of them for years, I was amazed with the standard of bowling in particular.
Rich argues that there are quite a few players here he would have no hesitation fielding in their respective age-group sides back in the UK based on their bowling. However in the main, their batting leads a lot to be desired. There’s an obvious reason for this, can you think of it?
They just haven’t got the equipment in schools to practice batting. They might have a few balls, but very limited bats, and so they just practice their bowling. It was noticeable that every team that won the toss today decided to bowl first, which is pretty much the opposite of what I see back home.
With so many schools involved and only 8 playing at any one time, there were obviously quite a lot of kids sitting around watching. Once again it’s amazing to be able to do so much for them so easily. By taking a single ball over to one of them and asking “can you catch?” you can instigate a game with them and before you know it, there is a massive crowd gathered around you playing catching games.
It was another long day, 9am-6pm, and most of us are absolutely knackered. Plenty of yawns to be seen around the group now in the evenings. We went to a strange kind of Indian restaurant above a supermarket in the evening, fantastic food but my personal highlight was finding out Rich’s most romantic song is “Me and Mrs Jones”, I can just imagine the sly dog turning it on when he’s trying to set the mood…