Lessons aplenty as cricket season gets going

 

The school cricket season’s here. Well, almost, there is still a football season to get through, but, for me, the Fasken Time Cricket Festival at St David’s Marist Inanda marks the changing of the season for the serious cricketing people and I was once again fortunate to have a seat inside the organisation, tasked with taking some pictures and putting together a little newsletter each day.

It’s quite an undertaking, made tougher by the fact that, as a far as mother nature is concerned, those massive lawns at St David’s, and at the other schools who hosted games, are just not ready for this particular type of ball game yet. You can tell they aren’t because they have the distinctive lines, semi-circles and rings that tell you football is taking place, clear for all to see.

That didn’t deter from some proper cricket being played though. The Fasken is special because it’s a festival of two-day games. There’s no rush to bowl the limited number of overs allocated, nor is there the imperative to smash runs off every ball. That kind of cricket comes later on in the season, and it’s hugely entertaining – I watch it whenever I can.

No, the relative leisurely pace of these games allows for the more classic skills and behaviours of the game to be applied, and it’s there that the lessons are learnt that make cricket such a good game to include in the bouquet of processes that schools utilise in the raising of young people who will be good adults one day.

Cricket is unique in some ways and it’s in those idiosyncrasies, often, that the life lessons lie.

For example, at the end of each day we, the recorders of facts and snappers of pictures, had to wait a while before the purple cap handovers could happen (more about them just now), while both sets of players disappeared into the distance to fetch the rain covers and lay them on the wickets. That’s a lesson cricketers are taught – when your game’s over you cover the pitch so that someone else can be sure of playing on it tomorrow

And those purple caps. At the Fasken the teams are asked to watch their opponents appreciatively and award a cap to who they believed was their best player on the day – you don’t see that in too many other games.

Walk from field to field, like I did, and you’ll see the players who aren’t on the field sitting together under a tree, or a gazebo. They stay put all day, trash-talking most of the time, but the coaches are amongst them, sightly off to one side, taking advantage of the teaching moments that always arise. Show me another sports event where fit, energetic teenagers show that sort of discipline.

I looked out for, and saw the customary special moments that you only see on a cricket field - a team disappear down the hillside to look for a lost ball; rounds of applause for special opponents’ performances – 50s and 100s scored, unplayable balls bowled; a wicketkeeper taking off his gloves to tie a batsman’s loose shoelace; and a fielder stretching out the leg of a cramping batsman.

Like I said – raising young people who will be good adults one day.

The Fasken’s done – roll on the cricket season.