Phuket Youth Cricket Celebrates Tournament Success

Following the recent success at the National Youth Games, the Phuket Cricket Group held a dinner party at the Karon Sea Sands Hotel.

In attendance were players from the Phuket side along with officials involved in sport on the island.

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Speakers on the night that congratulated the boys were:

Sir Alan Cooke – Major Sponsor of the Island Furniture Cricket League and supporter of Youth Cricket in Phuket.

Bill Brown – Chairman of the Phuket Cricket Group

Khun Chestavit Tantiphanwadee, President of the Phuket Sport Association

Khun ??, Director of Baan Sapham School

K. Mam – Regional Youth Development Officer

K. Tuk -

Kru Pin, Coach of Cherng Talay School.

Phuket U19’s shine in National Youth Cricket Competition

Petchaboon – 26 March 2010 – Following some very spirited games in this seasons Island Furniture Senior Cricket League, an U19’s representative team was selected by the Phuket Cricket Group and sent to the recent National Youth Games in Petchaboon. Teams competed from each Sports Association of Thailand area, some with many years of youth development experience behind them.

The Phuket team was drawn in pool 2 with Bankgok and Khon Kaen, one of the gun sides in the country. After a superb bowling performance in game one, Khon Kaen proved too strong for our team and won the game by 9 wickets.

Chonburi were next and after some fine bowling to restrict Chonburi to 107 runs, K. Somrat and K. Kitanet, from the Phuket team, dominated in the bat to easily reach the total of 1/108 runs.

In the final game, against Bangkok, a playoff for 3^rd place in the tournament, K. Nattapat managed a brilliant 34 runs from 44 balls to help the side reach a strong score of 89 runs.  It was then up to our bowlers who didn’t disappoint with good line and length bowling reaping rewards managing to restrict the opposition to only 57 runs.  K. Arthid was the stand out with figures of 2/23.

The playoff for first and second was between Khon Kaen and Chiang Mai with Chiang Mai eventually winning the game and the competition.

Youth cricket is in its infancy here in Phuket with only a few years development under its belt, making this performance a fantastic effort by all involved.  Congratulations goes out to all the players, coaches and officials.

Cherng Thalay junior cricketer takes out batting award at National U19’s Tournament

19^th – 22^nd November 2009 – Bangkok, Thailand.  Following months of hard work by both players and officials from the Youth Development Programme of the Phuket Cricket Union, a team of local Thai youths were established to represent Phuket in the National Youth Cricket Tournament in Bangkok.

Teams from Chaing Mai, Khon Kaen, Bangkok, Cholburi, Petchabun and Phuket participated in the tournament which was organised by the National body for cricket in Thailand, the Cricket Authority of Thailand.

In what were described as hard but closely fought games, the Phuket team managed an extremely rewarding 3^rd place. As they were competing against other districts in the country that have had youth programs established for more than 10 years, the result was even more rewarding considering the short length of time the Phuket boys have been playing cricket.

With some fantastic batting Somrak Pansakul (Duang) from Cherng Thalay won the trophy for “Batsman of the Tournament”, following a solid knock of 46 not out in one of his 15 over innings. The team managed to amass a total of 116 runs in that game, which was the highest score of the tournament.

Following this most enjoyable tournament, our younger Phuket boys are looking forward to meeting the other teams in friendship and competition at Petchabun where cricket is to be included as an U15 demonstration sport at the “Thai National Youth Games’ in March 2010.

To help with their development, the U19’s have decided to form a team for this season’s Island Furniture Senior Cricket League, which kicks off soon.  “The experience that the boy’s will gain playing against senior cricketers will be invaluable and will certainly improve their game.’’ commented Mr. Michael Way, Youth Development Officer for the Phuket Cricket Union.

The Youth Development Programme practice is on every Sunday morning (09.30 – 11.30am) at Baan Sapham School.  Youngsters of all ages and nationalities, as well as their parents, are welcome to attend and join in.

For more information on the Island Furniture Senior Cricket League and Youth Cricket in Phuket go to www.phuketcricket.com

The Phuket Cricket Sixes 2009 raises funds for Youth Cricket

The Asian Cricket Sixes Tour rolled onto the island between the 15th and 19th April for the sixth annual Phuket International Cricket Sixes Tournament. The event was, once again, an enormous success with 26 teams competing over four days of intense competition including two local teams, The Karon Seasanders and The Village Cricket Team.

The ACST kindly nominated the PCU’s Youth Development Fund as the Tournament’s Official Charity and it looks like we managed to raise nearly 130,000 Baht to go towards the development of the local kids’ cricket. They also gave us the opportunity of ‘showcasing’ the success of the program with an exhibition match played between Cherng Talay High School and Sapum School and the visiting players were extremely impressed by the talent on display, most of whom had only picked up a bat a year ago.

So we must say a massive thank you to the ACST, without generating funds like these the Junior Programme simply could not function.

You can read up on all the action and results at www.phuketsixes.com .

We look forward to welcoming back the ACST next year for another action packed five days of FUN IN THE SUN!!