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KUALA LUMPUR – The Malaysian Cricket Association (MCA) hit the jackpot by securing a RM4.6 million sponsorship from Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD) for the development of cricket at the grassroots level.
As the beneficiary of YSD’s sponsorship, MCA edges closer towards its vision of turning cricket into ‘a major sport in Malaysia’ by aiming to develop the Cricket Adiwira Programme and the Women’s Development Programme.
Through the Cricket Adiwira Programme, MCA has set a road map that enables a generation of children, who believe and uphold unity in diversity, to have the opportunity to play the sport ─ regardless of their socio-economic background ─ and acquire a sense of pride as Malaysian sportspersons.
“On Behalf of MCA, I place on record our sincere gratitude and appreciation to Yayasan Sime Darby for having confidence in MCA’s pathway programmes and thereby concluding the Sponsorship Agreement to support Malaysian Cricket Association’s development of the entry-level Cricket Adiwira Programme and the Women’s Development Programme, targeting the Under-12, Under-15, Under-17 as well as the Under-19 High Performance Women’s Team.
“We have worked tirelessly over the years to establish structures which would give us the ability to deliver on our aspirations and targets. We are of the opinion that participation at an early age is key to the long-term sustainability of Malaysia being one of the top-playing countries soon,” MCA president Mahinda Vallipuram said.
Managed by one development manager and ten (10) development officers throughout Malaysia, Cricket Adiwira is an indoor and outdoor programme for primary schools encompassing a pool of 128 student cricketers for each institution with 4 programmes per year and 32 players in each respective programme.
After successfully training more than 1,100 teachers for the programme over the past 12 months, MCA targets to lock in a total of 1,500 schools under Adiwira Cricket in the next 3 years.
Through the Women’s Development and High-Performance Pathway Programme, MCA aims to showcase the Women’s Under-19 and Senior Women’s teams in the international arena.
YSD’s support would enable the Under-19 Women’s team to play in quality competitions, conduct centralised training sessions and get the necessary exposure to qualify for the ICC T20 Cricket World Cup and improve on their International Cricket Council (ICC) world ranking.
In addition, the sponsorship will also provide the team with a chance to qualify for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, UK.
“YSD is thrilled to collaborate with Malaysian Cricket Association to introduce the game in its simplest form to more than 130,000 school children and by providing capacity-building to over 1,000 teachers. Apart from developing interest in the game at the grassroots level, the programme also helps identify and recruit budding talents in the various age categories under the National Cricket Development Programme. Ultimately, we aim to produce 15 professional women players to qualify for the T20 Cricket World Cup in 2023.
“We are supporting all age categories within the Cricket Development Programme as we believe that funding initiatives for female talent development in sports are few and far between. We also believe that female athletes have the potential to excel and make our country proud, just as well, if not better, than their male counterparts,” said YSD chairman Tunku Tan Sri Imran Tuanku Ja’afar.
Meanwhile, International Cricket Council Chief Executive, Manu Sawhney said that this partnership will fuel the growth of the sport, both in terms of early participation and for women’s cricket in Malaysia.
“We hope that this also inspires many others to join us in growing the sport even further,” he said. – The Vibes, December 24, 2020.
