Up to 800 hopeful young cricketers will be starting this month to impress upon forty coaches who are sifting out talented future welsh cricket stars.

Across Wales, eight regions are busy coaching and trialling boys and girls between 10 and 15 across five age groups to mould 40 representative squads for the summer of 2001. From this array of well-groomed talent, National selectors will be able to cherry pick the most talented to put on the Wales sweater.

These forty coaches have been funded by the Sports Council for Wales' Coach Cymru scheme and selected by the Cricket Board of Wales.

Venues across Wales range from Glamorgan's state of the art National Cricket centre, to Newport Spytty Park, Tondu CC, Neath indoor school, the new 'Dome' at Haverford West, Llandrindod Wells School, Bangor, Bethesda and Y-Morfa at Kinmel Bay, Towyn.

Director of Cricket Mark Frost said: "This is a tremendous opportunity for every junior region in Wales to begin a pattern of winter trialling and high quality coaching, ensuring that a generation of cricketers is being taught good technique but also a much better understanding of the game's tactical, captaincy and technical aspects. In years to come future young professionals working under Glamorgan coaches John Derrick and Jeff Hammond will have a more mature cricket knowledge."

Photo opportunities are available for any of these sessions. Please contact: Mark Frost at Sophia Gardens. cbw@ecb.co.uk 029 2041 9336 for further details.

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