On 15th August, approximately twenty young people of Barking and Dagenham completed a week long intensive cricket coaching programme at Barking Park. Scintilla Cricket Club teamed up with London Borough of Barking and Dagenham’s Summer Uni project to deliver a cricket summer camp to coach young people develop their basic skills in batting, bowling and fielding. It proved to be huge success amongst the participant who were aged between 8 – 19 years. The attendance over the course of five days was 100%.
On the last day of the summer camp there was a mini tournament amongst the trainees where they applied the skills acquired through coaching. Scintilla CC which is a local cricket club received some funding support from the council to organise this project but had no idea that it would be prove to a huge success. Mr. Shafqat Ezdi, the Camp manager said “we were just hoping that some young people may express an interest but to get 100% attendance from all 19 participants is beyond our wildest dream”. Club Captain and a senior coach at the camp Ahmed Choudhury said “the willingness to learn new skills amongst the players was awesome and to see them applying them in a match situation was even more of a joy to watch. The venue, Barking Park is an ideal location for cricket as it sits right in the hub of our community. We hope that the council will consider this venue as a suitable place where the senior players of Scintilla CC can play their home matches in the future. I strongly believe that through spots in the park this can further strengthen community cohesion in Barking and Dagenham”. Club Chairman Mr S M Z Hossain also praised everyone for their hard work and said “I would like to thank everyone for their effort in this project especially the support given by London Borough of Barking and Dagenham to designing and delivering of this project”. Parents, guardians, council staff were invited to came along on Friday afternoon to see a match between the young people. Everyone received a certificate of attendance and a medal for their hard work and dedication. Also, Cllr Rocky Gill (Longbridge Ward), Bernie Davenport (summer university co-ordinator), Andy Johnson (Barking Park Manager) and Salim Yasin of Elliott Davis Cricket League handed out individual merit awards.