With the recent demise of the England Cricket team in the Ashes against Australia, Rickmansworth Cricket Club have decided to do their bit to help develop local young talented Cricketers to be the best they can by employing an Internationally renowned coach to take over their Colts programme.

With immediate effect, Vernon Senanayake, an ECB and SLC qualified Cricket Coach, will take over the running of the clubs Colts Cricket programme for 8 to 16-year olds. Vernon has coached at all levels and helped players progress from club, to County to International Cricket especially in his home country of Sri Lanka. At one point Vernon was coaching the SL International team and has more recently helped in the development of young players at clubs such as Stanmore and Bessborough. He is the coach at Merchant Taylors School in Northwood.

With an estimated 250,000 players leaving Cricket in the last 5 years, and the opportunity to see Cricket on domestic television decreasing, we thought it was time to do something about improving the playing chances for the estimated 4,000 or so children in the above age brackets living within 2 miles of our club. It's fair to say the club has already had good success with 4 Herts County players coming through the ranks in the last few years, such as Raunak, Harvey and Tahir, whilst 2 colts teams reached the County finals in 2017, but now we want to move into top gear.

Indoor Cricket coaching begins at the impressive Rickmansworth School indoor facility on Thursday the 18th January from 5.45pm for up to 2 hours, under the direct guidance of Senanayake and all parents of potential young players are advised to email the club rickmansworthcc@btinternet.com or to text/call 07793 294774 to make sure that one of the 30 available places is reserved. Coaching will continue until Easter when matches and outside coaching will continue through the Spring and Summer.

It's all about uncovering the uncut diamonds and turning them into stars for the future. The best way to do this is proper coaching at a young age. Let's hope the local youngsters are prepared to put down their x-box controllers and gain the benefit.