School Cricket Program

The National Belgium Cricket Federation and its regional body Cricket Vlaanderen (CV) delivers a extensive program to develop and promote cricket in Belgium. They are organizing cricket initiation sessions and subsequent after-school cricket activities with/in schools right across Vlaanderen for children between 7 and 13 years old.

We are regularly invited by the schools to discover this exciting sport and to take part in the initiations during and after-school hour’s sports activities. There is direct investment required for this program from BCF in terms of manpower, travel, equipment, and supporting volunteer coaches.

The program works as follows: We do an agreed number of cricket initiations with/at School. After these initial sessions during school hours, we establish if there is enough interest to start after school activities. If there is continued interest, we agree on at least 6 sessions once a week after school hours.

When these six after-school sessions are completed, there will be a skills evaluation test, where successful children will get a BCF/CV badge and certificate. This certificate will make them eligible to join a club which is in the vicinity of their school.

The club coaches will train them the basics of cricket. Our cricket training incorporates the principles of Long term athlete development (LTAD) by doing the drills associated with LTAD children learn the physical literacy necessary for all sports not just cricket. An added feature of our training is that it is based on the growth spurt where we test and know when the growth spurt is happening and adjust our training accordingly.

After another six more training sessions at the club and/or Cricket Academy with a certified and qualified coach, there will be further skills evaluation, if they are again successful they can move on to playing with real hard cricket balls. At the end of the winter period there will be the final test which if passed they would be eligible to play in the BCF junior league and even train with the national team of their age group if they show enough potential. After each test they will be given BCF cricket badges and a certificate.

We guarantee a safe, insured and fun environment with qualified coaches. Many schools in Belgium have already experienced this exciting sport where the children learn team spirit, social skills, a chance to become familiar with the English language/culture, and much more.

The program is so successful, that we are only limited by our resource capacity. We seek new and additional means to develop it further.