King’s Worcester Cricket Tour to India

Over the half-term holidays, 25 King’s Worcester Cricketers from Years 11 to 13 (Fifth Form to Upper Sixth) toured Mumbai and Pune, India.

In total they played 10 matches, playing a variety of formats and a mixture of club sides and academies. On the field, the going was tough and the quality of the opposition was quite staggering. One thing that was obvious during the tour was the love and passion the people of Mumbai have for Cricket and everywhere you looked there was a game taking place. The team were lucky enough to visit one of the famous Maidans, where as many as 10 games of cricket can be played simultaneously!

A tour to India provides the pupils with a great chance to better themselves as cricketers but also to understand the culture of a country like this. Off the field, the pupils managed lots of sightseeing and at the beginning of the tour visited the Gateway of India, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (one of the busiest train stations in the world), Mani Bhavan, one of Ghandis residences and the Taj Hotel, which is where the Mumbai terror attacks happened in 2008. They were also very fortunate to be hosted for lunch at the prestigious Bombay Gymkhana Cricket ground, where India played their first-ever test match against the MCC in 1933. One of the main highlights of the tour was on the last day, as pupils enjoyed a morning cycle tour of Mumbai and visited (amongst other things) a Jade Temple, The Crawford market and Sasson docks.

An action-packed 10-days sadly soon came to an end and it was time to head home. Some long travel did not dampen the enthusiasm of the boys, even after a quick realisation that it was back to school the next day and business as usual! Mumbai was a truly great place to have a pre-season and it will hopefully stand us in good stead for the season ahead.

Director of Cricket, Mr Greenall added, “This is our second tour of India in recent years and it’s a brilliant place to visit from both a cricket and touring perspective. The standard of Cricket we played was exceptional and all the boys found it difficult to adjust to conditions, as most days we were playing in temperatures of 35 or 36 degrees and against state-level cricketers! All the coaches were hugely impressed with how the teams conducted themselves for the entirety of our time away and wouldn’t hesitate in going back. I would like to say a huge thank you to all the boys and coaches that attended the trip because, without them, an enjoyable overseas trip like this wouldn’t be possible.”