[Neil Pickup]

Good to know things have been going well. I had the most horrendous maths lesson with Year 3 today so it's nice to see that I still have some clue how to do something...

As for Kwik, it all depends on your area and your schools.

Speaking from a state sector perspective, you do not have the time, space or resources for 'proper' cricket at junior schools. To remove hard-ball-fear takes time and you need to use it for a reasonable amount of time with a low adult:child ratio to repair the inevitable crying moments. Kwik avoids this, and also avoids the cost and maintenance that is full whack kit. It also keeps more children involved in more of the game for a longer extent - proper cricket can easily end up being played 5-a-side with six fielding and batting in the tail. If you're one of those six, you're less likely to keep playing.

I can't really speak for whether it's boosted childrens' interest in cricket - I think last summer's Ashes has had a phenomenal impact on join-up to cricket clubs. Drawing the football and rugby analogy on, neither sport is played with 'adult' rules until secondary school age: mini-soccer and tag rugby, so it's correspondingly illogical to suggest that cricket ought to be played in the same way by 9 year olds as 29 year olds.

Saying that, cricket's different in that it has the skill of innings-building and pressure-building which exist in the long-form but not the short-form, and so obviously if children are capable, then they should be playing hardball 11-a-side in a club side as soon as possible.

Dunno what that established. It's more a tired Friday-evening thought stream than owt else...