This as the Standard Bank prepares for the annual Regional Performance Centers National under 16 Week at its home of origin Potchefstroom, in the North West province from March 22 to 27.
The week long programme seeks to identify players within disadvantaged areas to be part of a high-performance environment within their own community and support structure – the idea is to grow a whole new generation of Protea players.
These centres of excellence provide the players with quality coaches and facilities, but also with life skills and socio-economic support and equipment, both personal and technical.
The coaching programme at the Regional Performance Centre looks after the players between the ages of 11 and 18. The objective is to harness the talent and prepare the players for national weeks and produce future Proteas and leaders.
A number of youngsters have been produced through the Standard Bank Regional Performance Centres (RPC) – at the recent School Weeks. From the 266 players chosen to represent the various provinces during the 2018 tournaments, the number improved to 337 RPC/Hubs players for the weeks that took place in December 2019.
David Mokopanele, Mass Participation Manager at Cricket South Africa – believes that the Standard Bank sponsorship of young cricketers has enabled them to develop quality star players over the years.
“For our country to produce quality cricketers, they need to be equipped with the necessary facilities and to take part in various tournaments to build their techniques and confidence. We recently had Tyrese Karelse, Odirile Modimokwane and Siyabulela Plaatjie who were selected as part of the U19 SA squad during the Cricket World Cup 2020.This is evidence that the Standard Bank RPC programme is beneficial to the young cricketers.
“The RPCs and Hubs programmes, through the valued support of Standard Bank, have played a key role in identifying players from previously disadvantaged areas, to be a part of an organized, high-performance environment within their communities and structures.
This is with the view of reshaping the cricketing landscape and change lives through developing the raw skills of the kids from non-traditional feeder-systems,” says Mokopanele.
The RPC programme also support education and Cricket South Africa has afforded 63 talented players opportunity to study at some of South Africa’s top schools. This was made possible through different bursary platforms.
The under 16 teams have been seeded as follows:
Group A: Boland, Free State and Northern Cape
Group B: Border, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Northerns
Group C: Easterns, South Western District and Western Province
Group D: Eastern Province, Gauteng and Mpumalanga
