KFC ,BUYA BAMBA PARTNER TO PROMOTE JUNIOR CRICKET
By Mast Reporter
KFC, an international fast -food chain has partnered with local potato producer Buya Bamba to promote development of junior cricket in schools across the country.
KFC and Buya Bamba will facilitate the hosting of a provincial team from Zimbabwe from March 8 to March 12, 2025.
Zam Schools pro35 cricket development director Ishmael Mbatata and former Zambia national team Bowler Anthony Barker said in separate interviews the move to would help to develop young talent and expose the players to the game.
“After a long season of Pro 35 games, we are grateful to have KFC and Buya Bamba coming on board to support a vision of bringing a quality side from Zimbabwe to compete with our boys during the Youth and Women’s Day.
“At the end of the day, this is the only way cricket will be taken seriously in schools because a lot of students want to play sports but it should give them a bigger platform than just playing inter-schools,” Mbatata said.
He said several players from various schools had been selected to play against Zimbabwe.
“From there [Pro 35 schools], we managed to cut the players to the final 24. We are looking at giving an opportunity to some of our quality players to play against Zimbabwe and that is going to make us better,” said Mbatata.
He said another way to develop players was to expose them to quality cricket games as much as possible at their development stage which is under-19.
Mbatata has emphasised that quality games such as international tournaments were the way to go.
“Getting the basics right, training hard and playing regular cricket is the way forward for these young emerging players from schools. Playing them with their agemates from other countries rather than rushing them to play in the local league which I believe more work needs to be done for our local league.
“It is giving these young stars exposure in their formative and then we can build a good quality player base. Playing enough cricket is not good enough, but are we focusing on quality and the main reason why we want to see these boys playing against other players from other nations, “said Mbatata
He hoped the Zambia Cricket Union (ZCU) would consider this as a platform for player development.
