YORKSHIRE TEA LAUNCHES CRICKET COACHING PROGRAMME

CBH Project Director Geordie Morrison looks back at the launch of the Tea Cup Coaching Programme in Gisovu last week…

Last week I was delighted to visit Gisovu to launch the Tea Cup Coaching Programme, which is a partnership between Yorkshire Tea, CBH and the Rwanda Cricket Association. The programme is designed to bring the benefits of cricket, including physical fitness, teamwork and the spirit of the game, to rural communities in Rwanda where there is not much organised sport.

Hundreds of school children, parents, local officials and tea estate staff flocked to the launch event at the Gisovu tea estate, a rural community located high in the hills of Rwanda’s iconic Nyungwe rainforest. This was proper frontier cricket - the wicket is reckoned to be one of the highest in the world, and almost all attendees had never experienced cricket before.

You wouldn’t have known watching the local school children, who demonstrated a cheering mix of natural skill and great enthusiasm. The Gisovu tea estate staff, who had only two short coaching sessions a few weeks prior to the event, showed no hint of this inexperience. One bowler’s action was strangely reminiscent of Lasith ‘Slinger’ Malinga, the idiosyncratic Sri Lankan speedster. Following a sunny morning of quick cricket, an exhibition match, live music and dancing, all attendees were treated to a well deserved lunch and some Yorkshire Tea! 

Yorkshire Tea has a long track record of supporting grassroots cricket in the UK, but they also buy some of the world’s finest tea – a key ingredient of premium blend Yorkshire Gold – from Rwanda. So the link between tea, cricket and Rwanda, as well as Yorkshire Tea’s commitment to building long-last relationships with people who grow their tea, makes the Tea Cup Coaching Programme an ideal community development project for them to support.

 We look forward to seeing the results of the coaching at the Tea Cup final at Gahanga Cricket Stadium in 2021!

 Click here to read more about the Tea Cup Coaching Programme

 And click here to see a video from 2017 about Yorkshire Tea’s involvement in cricket in Rwanda