The search is on to find the best cricket photo in Leinster in 2013. Anything goes, as long as it is something to with the playing of cricket in Leinster, or of those from Leinster playing cricket somewhere else! To enter your photo, mail to photos@cricketleinster.ie

Adamstown Cricket Club hosted its annual BLITZ tournament last Sunday, 23rd September in Corkagh Park. The tournament 4th year in its running saw 10 teams around Dublin competing for the BLITZ Cup including Adamstown’s Youth and Seniors, Dundrum Beaumont, Team Merrion,  Expendables (Griffith College), Terenue Titans, Naas Challengers, Blackrock, Swords CC and Tallaght Challengers.

During July, specialised cricket clinics were held in Fingal to help further develop young local players. These clinics proved to be a great success with 80 players attending. Players had the privileged to have experienced coaches’ share their knowledge regarding different aspects of the game of cricket.

At the beginning of August 2012, the girls U15 side had a successful trip to Malvern in Worcestershire, beating Buckinghamshire, Kent and the Wales Dragons

Cricket Leinster’s Under 19 girls team travelled to Malvern in Worcestershire to take part in the County Shield tournament, with matches against Buckinghamshire, Dorset and Somerset.After wins in the first two matches, the final match against Somerset went to a bowl out after rain, and Leinster came out 3-1 winners.Photos courtesy of Kevin Murphy

Dundalk Cricket Club found themselves in the spotlight once more at their Dromiskin ground on Wednesday 1st August.The club have been followed by RTE 1’s John Murray Show as part of the ‘Underdogs’ series and the John came down to see the club at a practice session and to interview some of the members. They were accompanied by none other than Phil Simmons coach of the Ireland Cricket Team who there was to look at some young stars of the future and to give a few tips.

Introduction:This inaugural mid summer festival is a major event in the fund raising calendar of Spinal Injuries Ireland. This is an initiative fully endorsed and supported by both Cricket Ireland & Leinster Rugby which is aimed at encouraging kids in the Leinster community to get healthy, get active, to get outdoors and play cricket & rugby.Spinal Injuries Ireland aims to use this event to raise funds for the charity whilst simultaneously showcasing and promoting the development of cricket and rugby for kids throughout Leinster. The recent ongoing successes of both sports has reached new heights, and never before have we seen so much interest and enthusiasm generated around these two sports in the community.

Six wonderful days of cricket blitz’s were held for pupils in both 4th & 5th classes during the month of May. The events were full of fun and enjoyment with children being offered competitive games and learning more about the game. And let’s not forget that we had great weather over the two weeks also! Overall, 23 schools attended the blitz’s with 40 teams and over 600 boys & girls gaining valuable playing experience. The teachers who accompanied the teams were most impressed with the ‘Kwik Cricket’ playing format and many have already expressed interest in setting up games themselves involving local schools. Always a good sign for the further development of the game.

Over 200 school children attended a number of Easter coaching camps held within Fingal cricket clubs and sports centres. The Easter camps were run over 4/5 days at different venues within Fingal, namely - The Hills CC, Rush CC, Malahide CC and Corduff Sports Centre. The growth of cricket in Fingal was clear to see during the running of these camps with over 50 of these children experiencing club cricket for the first time. All the camps experienced record numbers attending and this is mainly due to the great work that local clubs, Fingal County Council & The Leinster Cricket Union are doing through the ‘school coaching visit programme’ that has been running for some years now.

Once a World Cup is over, you have to wait another 4 years to get to see the next one, right? Wrong! Not in Dublin, anyway. With the Mini World Cup, an initiative by Volcano Sports Club, Unitas ISAC, and WISAC, in partnership with Sports Against Racism Ireland (SARI), a cricket world cup in an annual event.

The Cricket Revolution continues in Dundalk.Dundalk Cricket Club in the third year of their existence took another step in advertising themselves and the game by taking part in the Dundalk St Patrick’s Day Parade for the first time.Much has been written about Dundalk’s debut season and their winning of Division 11 last year and it was decided that the St Patrick’s Day Parade would be the pertfect opportunity to display the trophy for the whole town to see.In order to make themselves stand out the club hired a vintage Beaufort Car in which newly elected club president Pat Kavanagh was driven in the parade flanked by members of the club.At many points along the route the club were applauded by the crowd and if there were any in the town who were unaware of the club’s existence previously this one event has changed that.The club now plan to make this an annual event.

It was a case of better late than never on Durrow’s village green yesterday, as Cricket returned to Durrow in County Laois after a gap of well over a century. It turned out to be a very special day for the schoolchildren from Durrow and the neighbouring town of Abbeyleix, as they took their place in history, and were all introduced to the sport for the first time in an afternoon ‘Roadshow’ of Cricket. Events yesterday were triggered by the fascinating discovery of a journal which documented the activities, including the paying of some Irish players, of ‘Ashbrook Union Cricket Club’, from Durrow spanning the years of 1846-1848. This journal, which was discovered in a builder’s skip in Kildare, will be sold next week by Local Art Auctioneers, Sheppard’s.

December 2011, saw a group of 12 players from different clubs across Leinster take part in the second annual trip to ‘La Manga’ Resort in Murcia, Southern Spain. The trip was organised by Leinster coaches Brian O’Rourke and Andrew Leonard and the players involved came from the current Leinster U15 and U17 squads.

LCU Dinner 2011, held at Old Belvedere RFC on 11th November. Photos courtesy of www.johnaustin.ie. Individual prints can be purchased from the photographer

Adamstown cricket club’s annual Blitz cricket tournament got off to an exuberant start last Saturday at Corkagh Park with six teams around Dublin taking part in this year’s competition. The Blitz tournament is a rapid fire quick of form cricket with 5 overs per innings per side and each team playing twice in the group stage.