Things are really moving in Belgium - despite the weather! It might be dry, dry, dry in Australia and New Zealand, but here it is a case of wet, wet, wet. Global warming? It's May and the central heating is still on!
The Belgian Senior League will got underway last Sunday, May 6, with three divisions. Once again, Pakistan Greens, winners of the First Division for the past four seasons, are expected to be among the front-runners. But this season may not prove as predictable as the last.
Royal Brussels CC has a much stronger first team this year and will provide Greens with a serious challenge, as will Khan CC's first-division team.
The Knock-Out Cup has been re-launched this season after three years in abeyance. Nine clubs have entered and once again the battle is expected to be between Greens, Royal Brussels and Khan. Due to the nature of the competition, however, an upset is not only possible but could be likely. The popular annual Sixes (won by Greens in 1999 and Khan CC in 2000) are now in their third year and will be held on Saturday, September 22.
For a number of senior players led by Wasiq Ahmed, the Belgian captain, the first game of a season so far completely disrupted by non-stop rain and appalling ground conditions, proved rather unexpectedly to be a match at Antwerp against a French national selection, as the French selectors looked to finalise their squad for Toronto. Arctic was not the word for the French players who had come all the way from the South!
The full annual international against France will this year take place at Thoiry (Paris), while the Belgian team is also scheduled to travel to Vienna for the ECC Trophy. Meanwhile, the national indoor team put in a solid performance after a poor start to come 5th of the 12 nations competing in the European Indoors in Portugal this year. Belgium will host the European Indoors in February next year, when up to 16 countries are expected to compete in what is believed will be the largest ever international indoor tournament. Belgium is hoping that CricInfo will not only cover the event but will send Tony Munro!
This weekend three youth leagues (U15, U13 and U11) were launched after blanket cancellation of all cricket the previous weekends. In a bitterly cold northerly, but on dry ground and with an occassional appearance by the sun, the incredibly enthusiastic youngsters finally got onto the fields, and with large numbers of spectators into the bargain.
This is the first season of national youth leagues and got off to a great start through an ECC-supported national coaching weekend on March 10 and 11, delivered by Stuart Barnes, the Gloucestershire Youth Development Officer and Academy coach. The youth leagues have meant a lot of work since last year for what is an entirely voluntary federation, but the weekend made it all amazingly worthwhile. The BCF is grateful to all the coaches and parents, and in particular to Peter De Boeck, a qualified umpire, Level One coach and Antwerp player, who has managed through sheer hard work to tie in the youth elements of three clubs to create combined youth teams of mainly Belgian origin. This is an unbelievably important contribution to the development and future of cricket here.
The Belgian Federation itself is strongly focused on development. In addition to the coaching weekend, which will be repeated during the summer hopefully, three young Belgians benefited enormously from attending the ECC's Bradfield College residential camp last month with Alexander Oltmans, the national U15 coach. The national U13 side, coached by Joe Middleton, will play a Dutch squad and France during the season and will also be tested by touring English school sides. The U15s will play in The Netherlands and against King's School Rochester (UK) before travelling to Berlin for the ECC Under-15 B tournament.
The introduction of the youth leagues and national fixtures for U13 and U15 sides has unexpectedly resulted in a large influx of young players to a number of clubs. Unfortunately, some of the clubs have so many youngsters (well over a hundred in one particular case) that the pressure on grounds, resources, qualified coaches and volunteers is reaching a critical point, especially when it is considered that youth players probably out-number senior players by at least two to one. This also means that friendlies, outside the leagues, are required to ensure all youngsters get games - the pressure on ground availability and management is therefore something of a problem.
In the meantime, Vijaydimon's generous assistance over the past 18 months has come to an end, but the BCF is hopeful of securing new sponsorship in the near future - for both the national sport and the European Indoors. A lot of what we are doing relies on it! And on the huge support we're getting from Ian Stuart, Adam Cole and Alison Smith in the Europe Office. Brilliant!