English mentor to jet in for cricket clinics

…as the cricket guru makes his second visit to the Mountain Kingdom

NTHAKO MAJORO

MASERU – Top United Kingdom (UK) cricket instructor, Martin Sampson, is expected to jet into the country this coming Sunday to conduct coaching clinics. This is going to be the second time Sampson visits Lesotho with the same assignment.

He was in the country to conduct similar clinics for young cricketers two years ago.

The Lesotho Cricket Association (LCA) Media Liaison Officer, Clifford Molefe, said Sampson would be conducting coaching clinics for under-13 cricketers, both boys and girls, in different primary schools based in Maseru.

The targeted schools, he said include Thamae LECSA Primary School, Liraoeleng, and Leqele Primary School. Molefe said Sampson would be accompanied by his eight-year old son, Matias, who will be part of the coaching clinics.  “They will arrive in the country on February 4 and rest on the following day,” said Molefe in an interview with Public Eye on Tuesday this week.

“Then on February 6, the duo will be in Lepereng, where they will be conducting coaching clinics for Thamae LECSA pupils, and on February 7, they will be at Leqele Primary School Ground to conduct a similar coaching exercise.” Molefe said on February 8, the Sampsons would be conducting coaching clinics at Liraoeleng Primary School.

“They will rest on February 9 and complete the clinics on February 10 with the under-13 women national team to be selected from Thamae LECSA, Leqele, and Liraoeleng,” Molefe said. Sampson, Molefe said, has volunteered to help them with the coaching clinics in a bid to develop grassroots cricket.

“He was here two years ago, still helping us with the same coaching clinics in different primary schools based in Maseru,” he said. Molefe said Sampson is from a cricket institution called All Stars Cricket, based in England, which specialises in conducting cricket clinics for youngsters.

“He is fully sponsored, and there is nothing that the Lesotho Cricket Association is going to pay,” he said. Molefe further said: “The main purpose for these coaching clinics is for our kids to grow up playing cricket until they become mature so that in the future we will be able to select among them when we select national team players.”

The coaching clinic programme is dubbed fun is primarily for children.  “It is called fun cricket because it is for kids, and whatever a child does should be fun, while at the same time getting cricket skills and knowledge—how to play cricket, the laws of cricket, and the everything else,” he said.

Cricket in Lesotho is still in its infancy stage as far as international cricket is concerned. LCA may have introduced the game some years ago, but the fact is that progress seems to be very slow.