Students in the spotlight
2004-12-03 12:39
The annual universities cricket week has sneaked up on us almost unnoticed but because of my involvement at the University of Pretoria, I'm with the team at this year's tournament.
This week must surely be the highlight of any student's cricketing career because I still remember all four South African University weeks that I attended and this week I met up with a few cricketers I played with and against at various weeks and they, like me, are coaches and managers of other teams.
The student's cricket week used to feature top provincial players in previous years with the likes of Richard Snell, Steven Jack from Wits, while Kovsies from the Free State had players like the late Hansie Cronje, Louis Wilkenson, Phillip Radley and Kosie Venter.
In our team at the University of Port Elizabeth, the likes of Neil Johnsen, Brett Schultz, Martin Venter and Grant Morgan just to name a few competed well at the various student weeks.
I do not see the same number of top players at the week and it brings me to the question. Are top cricketers studying while they pursuing professional cricket careers?
The demands on cricketers nowadays are much more than when we started off our careers and we struggled to balance the demands of studies and playing especially in the October and November months.
Exams and the stress to make the first few games of the season for the provincial side made that period of the year an absolute nightmare. Then this student's week came along as a stress relief for the hard work of the previous months and it looks like the players have more to stress about now then before.
Standard down
The week that is currently underway at Wits University has just seem to have lost that edge and with the number of teams increasing over the years it looks like the standard has definitely gone down.
The coverage in the media or lack of it says that this once high profiled tournament now only gets a small mention in some newspapers and this must be a worry for the organisers of universities cricket in our country.
These institutions were and will always be the feeders of provincial players to the various provinces (franchises) and this can clearly be seen in some of the struggling provinces.
When Eastern Province was dominating cricket in South Africa the University of Port Elizabeth were very strong and the last few years the university was struggling and it reflects on the poor showing of the Eastern Province cricket.
The success at Free State a few seasons ago was also the work of the university over there as the bulk of their team came out of the Kovsies lineup. The heart of North West cricket's success can be attributed to the efforts made at Potch University and this is a clear indication that student cricket has a big role to play in the future of South African cricket.
I hope the intensity of the week can increase to the same level if not higher than it was before.
What's you view on this column. Tell Shafiek.
Shafiek Abrahams is a former national cricketer.
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