Nairn Cricket Club are bringing table top cricket to Highland Schools as well as reaching out to all areas of the community this summer. And their cricket provision for disabled local people has grown thanks to a lot of hard work by volunteers. The club launched table cricket at The Manor, a care home for disabled people in Nairn. Club chair Kim Neill said: “This went down very well as they have many folk with different needs in the home.”
On the day of the launch Nairn’s Provost Laurie Fraser and Fiona Green, Disability Sport Officer from High Life Highland attended and they were very impressed how the game could involve people with quite severe disabilities.
Provost Fraser commented: “It was a great afternoon with lots of competitive individuals seeing how many runs they could score.”
Since then the club have through Fiona Green been coaching in Drummond School in Inverness and St Clement’s in Dingwall which cater for young disabled people. Pupils at the Drummond School have also had Kwik Cricket.
St Clement’s have two table cricket teams, one girls and one boys. “The teams at St Clement’s are really competitive as table cricket is very strategic. They have just started softball and I’m sure there will be some good players there as well,” Neill added.
The table cricket program was been initiated by the ECB and supported by the Lord’s Taverners. Cricket Scotland have now also become heavily involved.
The game is played on a table tennis table with sides and sliders as fielders and the ball is bowled off a ramp. The batsman must play a controlled shot, rather than smashing the ball. Runs are scored when the ball hits the spaces not protected by the moving sliders.
Picture: Provost Laurie Fraser and Fiona Green observing a game in The Manor Care Home