Play up, play up and improve the curriculum with cricket, the children's secretary, Ed Balls, today urged schools in England.
He challenged pupils to come up with new ways to extend the reach of cricket and to use the sport to raise standards across the school curriculum. Whether they regard Balls's delivery as a crafty googly or a lame full toss, the two schools with the best ideas will each receive a set of 15 tickets for one of the ICC World Twenty20 matches at Lord's.
The first challenge could focus on getting more girls involved, promoting small sides, or running indoor tournaments.
Balls also wants to see cricket exploited in the classroom – from the technology used in the computerised ball-tracker, Hawk-Eye, to the way the story of cricket reflects the history of Britain and its former colonies. Then there are the masses of statistics that the game generates.
Speaking at the sports colleges conference at Telford, Shropshire, he said: "From the village green to the Ashes tests to playground scratch games, cricket is part of our national identity. Not only does it have obvious health benefits for young people, it also develops them in other ways – co-ordination, balance, team work, tactics, and remaining calm under pressure. I'm convinced it can have benefits across the curriculum too. Cricket is often called an art and a science – it's time for schools to demonstrate that."
The children's secretary confirmed that 75 sports colleges will share over £21m to improve sports pitches with flood lights, artificial turf and new tented style sports halls.
He conceded: "There is still a long way to go if we are going to achieve our ambition of five hours of PE and sport per week. But our ambition is to turn best practice into common practice."
• ECB: www.ecb.co.uk
