15 Oct 2013

Mophato Private School is the winner of this year's Mater Spei invitational tournament. They won by eight wickets against Mater Spei in the final on October 12.

Mophato scored 25 runs for loss of two wickets while Mater Spei scored 24 runs for loss of all wickets in a game played under hot conditions at Mophato cricket ground.

In the losers' final, Francistown Secondary School scored 100 runs for seven against Selepa Junior Secondary School, who scored 60 runs for 10 wickets.

FSS won by 40 runs. The 20-20 tournament for school boys was contested by Mophato Private School, Selepa Junior School, Mater Spei College and Francistown Senior Secondary.

The tournament organiser, Calvin Morapedi in an interview explained that most schools in Francistown recently introduced cricket to their sporting codes and noted that a lot of players were equipped with the basics of the game.

The tournament, he highlighted, intended to give players exposure through competition as some of them only encountered the sport at junior secondary school but, had never played competitively.

So far, he said they had two groups that had completed the basics of cricket but had not tested their skills in a competitive match.

Consequently, he added, the Botswana Cricket Association (BCA) had trained most primary, junior and senior secondary school teachers as cricket coaches, which was good for grassroots development.

The levels of skill during the competition, he noted, was very good especially the young Selepa junior secondary players who proved their mettle against Francistown senior secondary.

On other issues, he reasoned that the inclusion of Mophato in the tournament was to allow other schools to learn from them as their players had been involved in the sport from primary school level and were used to the competitive environment.

“Most of our players in government schools only started playing cricket at junior and senior secondary school, hence, we wanted them to have a taste of competition,” he noted.

Morapedi also mentioned that BCA has been supportive to cricket development as it provided equipment and almost all primary schools had equipment from the association.

Also, he said, the association also ran continuous workshops for cricket coaches every term.  “The response of students towards cricket has been overwhelming. Most students like experimenting with new sports and the same has been happening with cricket as they have been coming in large numbers, eager to learn,” he highlighted.

On the objective of the tournament, he said, they wanted players to learn from their mistakes from the games they played and improve their skills when playing under pressure. Ends