Junior Boys
Christchurch is proud to enjoy a very strong Junior Boys competition. We have more than 1800 players playing cricket on a Saturdays. The CJCA are committed to continue this success and continue to grow the number of kids playing junior cricket in Christchurch.
Junior Grades
With the luxury of numbers the CJCA currently offers 8 grades and 15 sections from Year 1 to Year 8 in the junior grades. With this, we are able to provide appropriate competitions for the various levels of skills.
This allows Club’s to create teams of players with similar skills and play against an equivalent team. with players of similar skills.
Pathway through youth cricket
Beyond our junior grades, our boys progress to the Youth grades which are administered by Christchurch Metropolitan Cricket. A pathway programme flowchart outlines the progression for players in Canterbury.
Festivals
The CJCA runs a ‘Spring Festival’ in November/December and a ‘Summer Festival’ in February/March each season for Year 6, 7 and 8. Parents or coaches can self nominate players.
We strongly encourage all boys to play in this tournament even if this is your first year of cricket. The festival structure allows for players to be placed in appropriate teams. It is great fun, the boys get to meet and play with other boys from different teams. They are played on three consecutive Sundays.
Games are played using a pod system giving players the opportunity to bat and bowl at various times throughout each game. Our goal is ‘to give every child the opportunity to succeed’.
If you have friends who are good cricketers but play other sports on a Saturday and would like to play in the tournament then encourage them to nominate themselves. The emphasis is on improving the boy’s skills and having fun.
Additional Opportunities – January & Interdistricts
From the festivals, players can self nominate to be involved in Festivals in January each year – we co-ordinate a number of representative sides in each year group. Players may also get the opportunity to play other Associations as a CJCA representative. These include games against Mid Canterbury, South Canterbury and Canterbury Country.
Two Year 8 squads are selected from the Spring Tournament each year to play in the South Island Primary Schools Festival that takes place in January this is a traditional event and features most of the District Associations from around the South Island. A new event started in 2021 aims to give boys not selected for these two sides an opportunity to play in a separate Festival also in January. In 2021 the CJCA had 5 additional sides in this event – 3 of which were Year 8 turning Year 9 teams – 1 a stand alone Year 7 turning 8 team and one a blend of Years.
This aims to increase the participation in Festivals and create more like-vs-like and variety for boys to play against others from outside Christchurch. In 2022 this additional event will be held in Christchurch – the traditional SIPST event will be based around Alexandra in Central Otago.
Questions? Please free to contact us on [email protected]