Duminy launches kids’ cricket tournament

IT MAY not be summer yet, but cricket is certainly the buzzword at the moment.

The inaugural Global T20 player draft at the weekend had tongues wagging and now one of Cape Town’s favourite sons, JP Duminy, has launched his very own JP21 Super 8 tournament to be held at the exclusive Val de Vie Polo Estate on December 17.

The JP21 Super 8, though, is vastly different from the Global T20 League as its primary focus is to raise funds for the JP21 Project, which works through cricket to uplift underprivileged communities in the Western Cape, but particularly around the Mitchells Plain and Strandfontein areas.

Along with Duminy’s Proteas teammates, Faf du Plessis, Morné Morkel and AB de Villiers, the quartet will play with fellow celebrity cricketers and philanthropists.

“I am very excited about it. The aim is to raise funds for the project. We are obviously finding it very tough to approach companies for money to do what we need to do. And it’s great to get my teammates involved and to have a bit of fun. It’s meant to be a day out for the family with celeb spotting, live entertainment and food trucks for the public to enjoy,” Duminy said.

The JP21 Project is celebrating its two-year anniversary and has already made significant strides in such a short space of time.

There are 36 out of 54 primary schools in the Mitchells Plain and Strandfontein areas that play cricket under the JP21 Project banner, while three artificial pitches have been laid to improve the playing facilities in the area.

However, the JP21 Project faces daily sustainability challenges even with the assistance of local municipality ward councillor and former Springbok prop Eddie Andrews. There is also a great desire to expand the programme to high schools in the area, but this is all dependent on fund-raising events such as these.

“There are quite a few council fields in the area and we have had great support from the local council in the area. Andrews has helped us try to achieve our ambition. But we want to create a pathway for kids that leave the project to have somewhere to go to. Obviously that’s going to be challenging.

“The cream of the crop are getting bursaries to go to better schools. And that’s obviously a good thing for them and for the project. But there are a huge number of kids that walk into nothing. We are trying to operate within our means, but in the future we would like to expand. It’s in the pipeline.”