Sponsor a Junior Cricketer.

"Sawatdee Pi Mai".........Happy New Year to all our sponsors, a very big thank you for making our sponsorship program a great success in 2010, we hope you will continue your support and help us educate and develop children through cricket from poor communities in Thailand.

After a delayed start to the Chiang Mai cricket season, the Chow Kow hostel boys are having a mixed start to the season, losing 2 of their 3 games so far, losing both games against their big rivals Chol Phratan Phataek from Doi Saket. Loose batting being the problem, far too many run outs, highlighting their lack of match experience but that’s cricket’s learning curve for you! Despite this, the bowling department is working well with Jun, our left arm fast bowler, who is getting better with every game and along with Pong our other opening bowler, who is accurate as ever, we believe these two boys are now on the verge of the Thailand national U-19 team. Six of the boys will travel down to Bangkok in January with the Chiang Mai provincial under 19 team for a Cricket Association of Thailand competition, so they need to impress the national coach who will be there. Generally all the boys they just need to focus on staying at the crease a little longer and then hopefully we will start to have some consistency. The boys are practicing 3 – 4 times per week but they missed out on a crucial month’s practice prior to the season starting due to the new nets being built at Gymkhana. The nets are finished now so they are back practicing again, their losses have been a blow to their own expectations for the new season, we are sure they will bounce back in the New Year.

Hat- trick hero, 11 year old Chanchai. Jun bowling against CPP at 3G OVAL (Prem) and the boys practicing after school at the new nets at PRC. Chow Kow's Sawasdee team.

The November Sawasdee (Kwik cricket) tournament at the Prince Royal’s College went very well for the younger boys at Chow Kow hostel, most of the better players had a football competition on the same day so were unavailable to play, therefore a second tier team represented the hostel and did remarkably well, finishing a creditable second place, an truly amazing performance, but this was mainly due to 2 of our sponsored boys, 11 year old Chanchai and 10 year old Chaiwut who are very talented young cricketers, incidentally, Chanchai took a hat-trick last week when he represented the Gymkhana junior team in the under 16 league, he’s an outstanding young bowler, we believe he is a great talent that should go all the way if he stays with the cricket program.
As we mentioned before six of the boys are trainee coaches, and assist us on a regular basis, Jun, Bonchooai, Mike, Bogachai, Choo and Along are all doing very well, assisting with basic catching and fielding drills etc, during the Sawasdee tournament in November the boys were helping out with all the teams in the competition, conducting warm ups and catching drills, it was great to see their involvement and the confidence they had in themselves.
We will also have 3 boys of our Hilltribe boys in the Thailand U-14 squad, who will play a round-robin competition with Singapore and Malaysia in February, the boys are Mike, Nikom and Piwan, Mike and Nikom who are both talented all rounder’s will be in Bangkok with under 19 Chiang Mai provincial team next month, so they should be automatic choices for the under 14 national team if they perform to their potential.
If you didn’t know the Gymkhana cricket ground underwent improvements over the last few months, the practice nets have been re-located next to the tennis courts and apart from needing some additional finishing work are now ready for use and our boys were the first to test them out. The artificial pitch has been replaced but it has been moved over to the edge of the square, so allowing Eric and Martin to produce another excellent grass pitch in the middle of the square Our sponsored boys helped out whenever they had free time, mainly during the weekends, many hands made a big job a lot easier!