India batsman Cheteshwar Pujara joined pupils at Dale Primary School as well as the Mayor of Derby City, Cllr Shiraz Khan and the Leader of Derby City Council, Ranjit Banwait, for the launch of the Cricket Derbyshire Foundation yesterday.
The Cricket Derbyshire Foundation (Registered Charity No. 1155801), a joint initiative between the professional Club and Derbyshire Cricket Board, aims touse the power of sport to educate, motivate and inspire children, young people and adults living in Derbyshire.
Superstar India batsman Pujara was joined by Derbyshire teammates Captain Wayne Madsen and wicketkeeper Tom Poynton at Dale Primary School, a local inner-city community school, for the charity’s official launch.
Cricket Derbyshire Director of Partnerships, Ryan Duckett said: “The Cricket Derbyshire Foundation is enhancing the work already being done by the Club and Derbyshire Cricket Board. It is delivering wider and more diverse projects to benefit people in Derby City and across Derbyshire.
“We are very lucky to have the support of high profile players such Cheteshwar, Wayne and Tom to support the positive lifestyle messages under our six project pillars – Sport, Health, Education, Social Inclusion, Arts & Culture and Heritage.
“We’ve also had excellent support from key stakeholders across the county. We hope to continue engaging with local stakeholders to develop our community programme further and help deliver key Cricket Derbyshire objectives.”
Dale Primary is one of the schools that has already been engaged in Cricket Derbyshire community programmes and was chosen for the honour of hosting the launch due to its excellence in creating cricket participation within the city of Derby.
The leader of Derby City Council, Cllr Ranjit Banwait, is a former pupil at Dale Primary and helped launch the Foundation along with the Mayor of Derby City, Cllr Shiraz Khan.
The duo took the opportunity to officially welcome Cheteshwar Pujara to the City.
Banwait said: “Cricket provides a great opportunity to inspire people and it is great to see players from Derbyshire County Cricket Club supporting the local community and providing such positive role models to young people.
“It was amazing to see a world star playing cricket with pupils from the school – a moment I am sure they will never forget.
“We would like to welcome Pujara to Derby and look forward to seeing him representing the county over the next few weeks.
“Under my leadership of Derby City Council, this administration is fully behind all our great sporting clubs and we will do everything we can to support Derbyshire County Cricket Club.”
