Groundskeeper Francis Kabi, left, and UWC Cricket Oval manager Stephen Jones

The man overseeing the University of the Western Cape’s (UWC) cricket facilities, including its magnificently picturesque oval in the centre of its Main Campus in Bellville, says in terms of club cricket, the ground is amongst the best in the province.

Stephen Jones is a former professional cricket player and a coach who has for the past four years been overseeing the grounds at UWC after being seconded from Sports Skills 4 Life Skills. 

The programme has been active at the University since 1999. It is a sport and educational non-profit organisation that originally focused on primarily assisting young cricket players from mostly marginalised communities to gain access to further education. However, it is now also branching off to various other sports

While coaching in the Eastern Cape, Jones says he linked up with current UWC coach and former Pakistan, Bangladesh and Cape Cobras coach Richard Pybus in the 1990s when he coached the Border senior men’s team. 

“I’m involved now in a number of things because I’ve stopped coaching. I’ve probably gotten a bit old and doddery for coaching. So I oversee what happens at the facilities,” said Jones.

"They’ve been going for a long time - 30 years. They’re also involved with other clubs. They work on a contract basis, they go and prepare the wicket and then move on to the next club. Here they’re on-site, they do all the sports facilities, they do a whole lot of things on campus. I was seconded by our committee (Sports Skills 4 Life) to oversee the Oval,” said Jones.

For a club cricket side, UWC was in an enviable position, Jones said, because some clubs had to hire out their facilities, which often meant these were used up to five days a week.

Groundskeeper Francis Kabi, left, and UWC Cricket Oval manager Stephen Jones

“For some clubs, it's normal because people are paying R5000 to R7000 to hire the facility. That pays the groundsman, that pays for equipment. It’s an expensive thing to run rollers, mowers and tractors. Obviously, having a contractor here with that equipment helps us so we don’t have to fund that,” said Jones.

UWC has six cricket teams: four men's teams and two women’s teams.

The UWC cricket oval on average hosts around 25 games a season, and Jones said the secret to ensuring the ground is always pristine is managing the cricket pitch, for instance. After every game it is subjected to deep watering.

“It’s used every weekend. In fact, we had one particular weekend where we only had one game here, otherwise it's used Saturday and Sunday,” said Jones.

Former chairperson of the UWC Cricket Club, Advocate Nic Kock, said the club was playing in the Western Province Cricket Association’s 2B league, which was the lowest league.

“About five years after starting the (cricket) programme we won the 1A and then went to national club champs, and since then we’ve been in the top four cricketing institutions in the country for the last 15-odd years,” said Kock who is also the executive director for Sports Skills 4 Life and a former president of Western Province Cricket Association.

Several cricket professionals have emerged from UWC, including South African Test cricketer Zubayr Hamza, and former coaches and support staff now ply their trades across the world. 

“Mumbai Indians Cape Town physio, Craig Govender, is from the programme. The Mumbai Indians women's team's sports and conditioning coach, Stacy Lee Hercules, is from our programmes. Proteas player, Lizaad Williams, who is contracted to the Mumbai Indians, is from our programme,” said Kock.

Such is the high esteem in which UWC’s cricket facilities are held that four Women's Proteas players did a warm-up session this week with the team’s strength and conditioning coach, Zane Webster, another former alumni.

Proteas Women’s captain, Laura Wolvaardt, when asked about choosing UWC, said: “It’s kind of difficult finding turf in Cape Town, at this time of year. Newlands is always difficult to get. Zane, our strength and conditioning coach, studied here. He’s got some connections and got a turf for us to train on.”