Contest to boost school cricket

Pupils are meant to do two hours of cricket a week

Children's Secretary Ed Balls has launched a contest aimed at boosting cricket in schools and using it to make lessons more relevant.

He wants children to devise ways of using cricket in various areas of the curriculum, such as maths and history.

The two schools with the best ideas will each receive a set of 15 tickets for a Twenty20 match at Lord's.

Two competitions are being backed by the cricket boards of England and Wales and the Youth Sports Trust.

Speaking at a sports colleges conference in Telford, Mr Balls said: "From the village green to the Ashes tests to playground scratch games, cricket is part of our national identity.

"Not only does it have obvious health benefits for young people, it also develops them in other ways - co-ordination, balance, team work, tactics, and remaining calm under pressure.

"I'm convinced it can have benefits across the curriculum too. Cricket is often called an art and a science - it's time for schools to demonstrate that."

One of the competitions involves pupils looking at ways of opening up cricket to different groups, particularly girls, and the other is about applying the game to particular subjects.

The organisers give the examples of the technology used in the computerised ball-tracker, Hawkeye, and the study of whether the story of cricket reflects the history of Britain and its colonies.

Ideas have to be sent the Youth Sports Trust and will be judged by the ECB, the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Youth Sport Trust and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.