The VoCASA-hal in Nijmegen was the setting on Thursday for the KNCB’s latest initiative to bring cricket into Dutch schools and thereby to kick-start the growth in youth numbers which is imperative for the future health of the sport in the Netherlands.

The medium this time was cricket’s newest outgrowth, a format called Cage Cricket which is specifically designed to capture the imagination and enthusiasm of young people by utilising existing facilities such as sports halls, outdoor basketball courts and the like.

And from the reaction of three groups of seven- to nine-year-olds from the primary school De Octaaf in Nijmegen’s Muziekwijk the game’s fast-moving action, frequent changes of role and simplified rules struck a resounding chord.

Before the action got under way the format was introduced to an invited audience by Cage Cricket director Stuart Robertson, former marketing manager with the ECB and Hampshire cricket, who emphasised the project’s aim of overcoming cricket’s triple disadvantages in broadening its appeal: the absence of time, space and money.

‘By making use of facilities which are already there but which are unsuitable for traditional forms of cricket,’ said Robertson, who helped to develop the concept of Twenty20 cricket while working for the ECB, ‘we can offer a game which is essentially democratic, building on the characteristics of street cricket, which has always existed in countries with a deep historic love of the sport.’

Cage Cricket is the brainchild of former Hampshire batsman Lawrence Prittipaul – the last man to hit a century at the county’s old County Ground and the first to do so at the Rose Bowl – and coach Trevor McArdle, both of whom were present at the launch of their product in the Netherlands.

The game divides the court into four coloured zones, with points being scored by the six players, competing as individuals, by hitting the ball against the walls and by claiming wickets. There is no scoring by running, and the only two ways of getting out – by which the batter loses points – are bowled and caught.

Players bat and bowl in turn, with those roles and those of the four fielders rotating according to a complicated pattern which is designed to ensure that during a 30-over game, lasting about an hour, everyone bowls to and bats against each of their opponents and fields in each of the four zones. Points are scored and lost in multiples of ten, and the player fielding in the red zone (basically from midwicket to square leg) controls the game, keeping the score and making any necessary decisions.

‘There are 12,500 multi-use games areas in the UK,’ Robertson said, ‘and some thirty to forty thousand small sports halls. That is a fantastic opportunity to take the basics of cricket to a wide public, enabling them to organise their own games in the way kids have always done in streets and parks.’

The Cage Cricket team has already begun taking the game to groups such as disabled pupils and the inmates of young offenders’ institutions, and is supported in its activities by such prominent ex-cricketers as Sir Ian Botham and Shane Warne.

‘The game’s democratic set-up encourages both communication and co-operation within a competitive setting,’ Robertson observed, ‘and for us this project is essentially a social enterprise, magnifying the power of cricket to do good.’

Longer-term plans include the possibility for players to post their scores on a global leader-board via the Cage Cricket website, so that it will be possible to become ‘King’ – or perhaps ‘Queen’? – ‘of the Cage’.

Amplifying the team’s slogan of ‘From Street to Elite’, Robertson showed a slide of a possible game in a major public arena, featuring six of the world’s best players taking each other on at Cage Cricket in front of a large crowd.

Richard Cox, KNCB chief executive, said that the Bond sees Cage Cricket as an important vehicle for introducing cricket to a wider Dutch audience, and that its plans would involve rolling the game out to schools in a number of centres. The initiative is supported by KNCB youth development sponsor Jordan Medical.

The evidence of the afternoon’s sessions in the VoCASA-hal was that the children thoroughly enjoyed the experience, even if the younger ones found hitting the ball a tough challenge and derived much of their fun from the constant running from one of the six positions to the next. Cheering on their classmates also quickly became a key part of the experience, and some of the diving stops to prevent the ball reaching the wall would not have disgraced more experienced players.

The older classes were able to take greater control of their own game, checking their positions against the colourful wallchart and hitting the ball more regularly and harder. Asked whether they had enjoyed themselves they all gave an emphatic ‘Yes!’, and there was unanimity that the best part of the game was hitting the ball.

As they learn to do so more consistently there is every reason to believe that Cage Cricket will begin to become a regular feature of the Dutch primary school curriculum.