It's cricket week time

The Christmas holidays always kick off with a flurry of inter-provincial action, with the two big summer school sports, cricket and waterpolo, holding their national tournaments, along with various other codes.

It's a very big deal for the boys and girls selected and in the case of the under-18 Cola-Cola Khaya Majola Cricket Week, anyway, it's one of the few occasions when school sport gets a mention in the mainstream sports media.

For the children, and for those who run the events, it's hard work, at a time when everyone else is on holiday, and my two cents worth is that we should be taking off our hats to all of them

The SA Schools Waterpolo championship, which is on at the moment is one of the biggest sports events on the calendar, involving boys and girls teams, in all the age groups, from under-13 to under-19.

I know both tournaments quite well. In my teaching days I was a waterpolo person and I attended SA Schools as a manager or coach 17 years in a row. In my next life, as a newspaper reporter, I have been going to the Coke Cricket Week for the last 20 years.

I'm going to be at the cricket week again this year, and it could quite possibly be for the last time, seeing I’m no longer a newspaper man. The sponsors have been generously sending me to the Khaya Majola Week for quite a few years now - Independent Newspapers decided to stop paying for feet on the ground in the days of their Irish owners already - and because, as quid quo pro, I perform some other non-media tasks for Cricket South Africa at the tournament, they insisted that I go along this year anyway.

And when I get there I know I will once again be dumbstruck at the hordes of grown up people who have given up a week of their hard-earned leave - the week before Christmas, no less - to organise and run an event for 17 and 18 year-olds, with no remuneration. In fact in many cases it will be costing them money to be there.

The Khaya Majola Week is run with military precision. A local organising committee has been working all year on the arrangements and Morgan Pillay, the week's permanent secretary will be keeping an eye on things, and using his charm and particular brand of emotional blackmail to get people to do extraordinary things beyond the call of why they got involved in the first place. 

Cricket South Africa’s manager of amateur cricket Niels Momberg's formidable presence is also always there, looming in the background, refusing to accept excuses, and not suffering fools gladly.

And the upshot is that, for the kids it’s a seamless week of fun in the sun. The fields are always immaculate, and alternatives miraculously appear if and when rain spoils the party; there are umpires; scorers; drinks and lunches and transportation to the many far-flung fields that a tournament of this scale requires.

And at the heart of it are the teacher volunteers. They spend hours running the game at their own schools and then find more time to attend trials, select and prune squads, coach and manage teams through pre-tournament friendlies and then give up their holidays. Luckily, very few of them are unionised, Sadtu wouldn’t allow that sort of abuse of its members.

They make up the numbers in every rank of the organising structures; local committee, organisers, lunch ladies, umpires and hostel staff where the boys are staying.

And the process, hangers-on like me are treated royally and, thanks to Morgan Pillay in particular, made to feel welcome and appreciated.

That’s what makes the Khaya Majola Week the envy of the other cricket-playing nations.

It’s a national treasure, and that’s my two cents worth.