Celebrating cricket in Corfu

The Taverners XI have twice visited Corfu and enjoyed long-term support on the island and with Cricket Corfu, which is a popular venue for touring English cricket teams. The first visit to Corfu was led by Nicolas Parsons in 1978 to coincide with the Corfu Literary Festival and the trip was successful repeated in 2017.

This year, we have once again had a rewarding visit to the island where we were able to celebrate 200 years of cricket in Greece with many of our members, our President David Gower, staff and a Tavs XI, captained by former England opening bowler Andy Caddick.

As part of the festival, around 30 young people from local cricket clubs took part in a coaching session, practicing their skills for bowling, batting and fielding. Our cricket coaching was delivered by two former participants from our Wicketz programme in Luton. Uzair and Malik, who now coach at the project and also played in the Tavs XI, passed on their knowledge and skills to the youngsters along with Caddick and other members of the playing team.

On the cricket field, the Tavs XI were joined by fellow teams including the Lord’s & Commons CC, British Army Development XI, Royal Household CC, Brigade of Gurkhas CC and the Hellas National Cricket Team.

We finished the festival in a respectable fourth place rounding off a fantastic engagement trip with praise from the Greek Federation and the game’s governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC) for the part we played and the awareness we raised of the charity overseas.

We would like to thank our travel partners Black Opal, the Hellenic Cricket Federation and the Corfu Palace Hotel for allowing us to make this memorable experience.