A True story. 'Cricket is fun'!'?
Hi! My name is Merel Dekeling and I am 16 years old. I play cricket at Quick C.C. in The Hague. I started cricket when I was 4 years old. Cricket is the sport in my family; my brother, mother, uncle, aunt, nieces, nephews and grandfather all played or still play cricket so I got involved in cricket from an early age.
I started at Quick with Tip and Run cricket. That is a kind of simplefied form of cricket, which makes it fun for younger kids. I our club our tip and run teams were named after big cricket countries. Usually I played for team India. We then played against the other children who were also part of a team and it was like a "mini-world cup".
When I was in the U12, we became Dutch National Champion. We were then invited to go to the The Hague Sports Gala and even more prizes were awarded there. In the U13’s we went with the whole team to England to play against English clubs there. That was really fun to do!
I also play at the KNCB (Royal Dutch Cricket Association) in Young Orange girls U17, also called Dutch Lionesses. You then play together with girls from different parts of The Netherlands. Every summer holiday there is a tour to Malvern (England) and this year there was also a tour to Ireland. My first tour was when I was in the U11’s, because then I was selected to join the U13’s Lionesses. So far, I have been on tour to Malvern 5 times, 1 time as captain. Such a tour is a really nice experience; you play cricket all day, you are with girlfriends and you get to know many new (English) people (who you will sometimes meet again the following year(s).
There are a lot of fun things and cricket is very special : the team feeling, the fact that a game can change in no time, the excitement, learning new things every game, the fact that every game is different, the training sessions, the feeling that you get if you do something good. Cricket is really a fun sport. Often you are at the club all days to watch others or play games yourself, train, be with friends and stay at the ground with the team after a game. Cricket is a mixed sport, so you are in a team with boys and girls. Since I stopped playing tip and run cricket, I now often only have 1 or 2 girls in the team and the rest are boys. But it is fun, because I have been in this team for so long that you just know each other well and it is always fun.
I am on the youth advisory committee of Cricket4YOU because I want to raise the awareness of cricket in The Netherlands. It is a sport for both boys and girls and I can highly recommend others to start playing cricket based on my own experience.
Greetings Merel Dekeling.
