WESTQUARTER AND REDDING RUNNING FIRST VISUALLY IMPAIRED CRICKET SESSIONS IN SCOTLAND
Westquarter and Redding CC have become the first club in Scotland to run visually impaired cricket sessions, providing new opportunities for people to engage with the sport.
Visually Impaired (VI) cricket is an adapted form of the sport, which allows blind and partially sighted competitors to play on equal terms. The main difference is the ball, with a size three football filled with ball bearings, so that the ball can be heard, used in UK Blind Cricket.
Sessions run at Bailliefields on Wednesday evenings, following a successful come and try event last month, with the club working alongside participant Brandon Little who was instrumental in bringing VI cricket to Westquarter.
He said: “Having played in England for quite a while, there wasn’t the same opportunities up here to take part in the sport, so I thought it would be good to get something going, find like-minded people who wanted to do the same thing, and it’s just progressed from there.
“We’ve only got a few members so far, but it’s growing week by week and eventually the plan is to get to the point where we can play against other visually impaired teams – if you’re visually impaired, and want to get involved in sport, come and give cricket a go!"
Anne Broadhurst, Community Sport and Health Officer at Bailliefields, said: “After Brandon reached out and was looking for somewhere to train, we were keen to start working with him, and after a few one-to-one sessions, we realised there were no visually impaired cricket clubs in Scotland, and wanted to work together to try and change this.
“Cricket Forth Valley and ourselves organised a come and try session in April, where we met another participant, Krishna, who was excited to get playing again. The club is now up and running, and although we’re starting small, we’re hoping to grow, and get more people with visual impairments playing cricket.”
One of the other participants who has been able to rekindle their love of cricket is Krishna Sayee, who attended the come and try event in April – and is now a regular participant!
Krishna said: “I’m so delighted and grateful we have this opportunity to play VI cricket here, and it would be great for VI cricket to really take off in Scotland – and I know everyone here is working hard to make that happen.
“As a player, I’m so delighted we have this, the opportunity to come down and bat and bowl, and just enjoy play cricket - I think it will go from strength to strength because there are people out there who want to play, and hopefully we can get a whole team together!”
Anyone interested should contact Anne Broadhurst, Bailliefields Community Sport and Health Officer, on anne.broadhurst@bailliefields.onmicrosoft.com or Connor Brian, Cricket Scotland Disability Cricket Development Officer on connorbrian@cricketscotland.com.