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This is just after 3pm on a end-of-week day and 22-year-old Sinelethu Yaso finds herself in her zone of joy. Her clean cricket uniform stand out against the synthetic green pitch, while energetic beats of kwaito music waft on the breeze as she ambles in to pitch.

Outside the boundary, in the Makhaza area of Khayelitsha, clothes flutters on a fence and the September sun shines off a corrugated-iron structure.

An impressive young woman was asked to take it easy on her opponents – an junior boys’ team – but Yaso’s flawless technique are sufficient to produce three successive missed shots.

With her next pitch, the batter at last connects. His only option is to loft it up to Yaso, who nonchalantly catches the catch.

Observing the game from his seat on the sidelines is a ex- test cricketer and mentor. “You can find some amazing talent in the neighborhoods,” he notes. “The missing piece is resources.”

The players on the field are all part of a not-for-profit initiative started in 2014. Creating a outreach program after retiring the professional cricket is not rare – but the method certainly is.

In place of trying to find talented players in the townships and then give them scholarships to wealthy schools or universities in privileged areas, the initiative is all about establishing top-tier resources inside the local neighborhoods.

Yaso was initially exposed to cricket in 2015. “A mentor was also a cricket trainer,” she says. “On one occasion I walked past the nets, and he asked me if I would like to pitch.”

Yaso – who has consistently been a noticeably taller than her teammates – proved to be a gifted player. Through the coaching of a experienced girls’ program mentor, Yaso has risen swiftly through the teams, performing for a series of age-group teams before being chosen to represent the top-level side in 2021.

“Initially I felt nerves,” she admits. “Eventually I got confident. I understand how the pitch moves … it matches my game really.”

Yaso frequents the center often, whether or not she has a training: “I don’t want to think about my life absent cricket.”

“It wasn’t a youthful goal,” she adds, “however now with the crew around me, it is beyond cricket – it has become I’ve made a support system.”

I was lucky in that cricket provided me so much. It’s time to give something back

This effort launched in 2014, when the founder teamed up with a school leader to visit multiple schools in this community.

“Having recently completed a coaching role, so I had some time on my hands,” explains the founder. “I felt there was an possibility to understand how cricket was being received in the communities near my home.”

The founder felt disappointed to find that not one of the schools he visited cultivated cricket – or other activities for that matter. After speaking to the schools’ governing bodies and employing his connections to secure funding, he got cricket structures constructed at several schools in the area and three coaches recruited.

Since then, the facilities have been upgraded – with an artificial pitch installed in 2020 and a multi-lane cricket facility a year later – and the programme expanded to include teachers who help the children with their schoolwork and frequent workshops on topics such as wellness, health education, and financial wellness. Currently, 18 coaches and over 400 players ranging from six to 19 access the venue multiple days a week during the year.

As the mentor: “Many of those kids will not make a profession from cricket, but they are all profiting from cricket. This place is like a ideal … it has become a community for all of us.”

Among the advantages that cricket gave was the chance to tour overseas and experience different countries. While affluent schools in South Africa regularly take cricket teams on tour abroad, community cricketers are fortunate if they ever travel beyond their own neighbourhood.

Previously, during a global tournament, the coach took a boys’ team to the UK. “This proved one of the highlights of my sports career,” says the former player.

Soon, to coincide with the global tournament, he will be taking a girls’ team to the birthplace of cricket. “It’s been a dream to go to England, to Lord’s,” admits Yaso, who is hoping to be chosen. “It’s a dream I have been hoping for … it means everything.”

The coach is just as excited. “This will be a valuable cultural exchange,” she says. “We cannot wait – it will be the most amazing experience for the players.”

She expresses emotional. “In my role, I feel honored to have a leader like the founder to call on,” she says. “Understanding how the center were built here means the so much to us. It means that he values a black child and the environment they are part of.”