The Khaya Majola Cricket Week adds new awards to make the tournament more memorable for the boys

Cricket South Africa and their provincial unions continues to look for new ways that they can improve on the experience at the week for the boys. This year is no exception as the KwaZulu-Natal Inland region adds new awards to the week to make it more memorable for the boys.

Morgan Pillay has been the Tournament Director of the Khaya Majola Cricket Week for the last 23 years in a row and, because the week is always scheduled to incorporate the 16th December holiday, and Morgan’s birthday is on 18^TH December, that means he has not been at home his birthday for almost a quarter of a century.

He’s there again this year as the 2019 week takes place in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal Inland, centred at Michaelhouse, with matches also being played at Hilton College, St Charles, Weston Agricultural school and the Pietermaritzburg Oval 

“The week has always featured the most talented cricketers in the under-19 age group, but many other things have changed since my one as tournament director, in Boksburg in 1996,” he said. “In the process we have created a world class stage that allows all cricketers to showcase their talent. There’s no question that this is the finest high school cricket tournament in the world.”

The boys are being housed at the schools, in luxurious accommodation, with good healthy food and first class facilities. Everything has been sorted so all that the players have to do it play their best cricket, make friends and have a wonderful experience, Pillay said. “All of the schools have gone out of their way to prepare their schools to the best of their abilities to make sure that the tournament runs smoothly.”

There have been a lot of changes to the tournament during Pillay’s time. “For example, when I took over the tournament the umpires and scorers were school children, Now we have qualified umpires and scorers and Cricket South Africa supply a manager to look after the umpires and assessors to make sure that the scorers and umpires do their jobs correctly.”

CSA use the week as training for their scorers and umpires, while providing the players with a top class service. This also creates an incentive for the scorers and the umpires to be at the week.

“The top players from each cricketing region come to the tournament and this allows the boys to measure themselves against their peers from across the country  top boys in other regions,” Pillay said. “This allows the players to meet others who they would not usually get to mix with. They can make friendships that can last for life.”

This year the LOC from KwaZulu-Natal decided that they needed to add something to the tournament that will make the tournament different from the others in the past.

They added the awards for the best bowling and batting performance for each day, they would recognize batsmen with awards for all of the centuries scored and the fastest century of the tournament.

To recognize the bowlers they added awards for all of the 5 wicket hauls and hat-tricks during the week.

Finally they looked at what the tournament means for a lot of the kids and that is making lifelong friendships and enjoying a memorable week so they added a fair play award for the player that was best in playing the game in the spirit of the game.

These awards will be given out at the awards ceremony on Friday evening together with the player of the tournament, the leading wicket taker, the leading run scorer and the best all-rounder awards.