Jain International Residential School

A Brief Report on JIRS Tour to UK

The JIRS cricket team toured UK from 6 to 16 June 2012 at the invitation of the City Cricket Academy, Leicestershire. The CCA cricket team had earlier played at JIRS for a week in February. The tour was a wonderful learning experience for the children and inspite of the fact that it was one of the wettest summers in UK in recent times, the team managed to play a good amount of cricket. In total, JIRS played 9 matches and won 8 of them. The boys also had the unique opportunity of playing indoor matches and had regular coaching and practice sessions at the CCA’s ECB accredited indoor centre, when it rained. This was a completely new experience for them, but they adapted quickly and enjoyed it thoroughly.

They had extended coaching sessions with ECB level 4 coaches Carl Crowe and Laurie Potter. Carl Crowe is in fact, presently coaching the England women’s cricket team. These sessions will no doubt, be a big step forward in their overall development as cricketers and the exposure to completely different playing conditions, including playing on typically green English wickets at picturesque, local club grounds, will definitely stand them in good stead in future.

They also had some very interesting sightseeing as well, including all the historical landmarks of London, like Buckingham Palace, Westminister Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Windsor Castle etc and at Cambridge where they visited 800 year old colleges like the Kings College, Trinity College etc where personalities like Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, William Rutherford, Dr Amartya Sen etc, had studied and researched.

But the highlight was definitely a visit to the ‘Home of Cricket’ a guided tour of the iconic Lord's Cricket ground. We also visited a Bat Factory that makes the famous ‘County ‘ cricket bats and were given an opportunity of seeing the entire process of how finished bats are made from a piece of English Willow. These batmakers have been making bats for the last 50 years and have had legends like Geoff Boycott, Kevin Petersen, Ian Botham, Imran Khan etc. playing with their bats! It was a great experience for the boys.

Jain International Residential School

We also visited the Leicester Grammar School which is one of the premier day schools of the area and were given a tour of their beautiful campus and sports facilities, by the Head of their junior school, Mr. Laurie Potter. Overall, the boys had a very enjoyable experience and learned a lot, not only about cricket, but also about different cultures and education systems and imbibed the essence of the English Cricket scene.