The World Sports Institute was launched in 2002 in London, with the first project being the World Cricket Academy (www.worldcricketacademy.com), with the purpose of being an independent international programme welcoming all types of cricketers from professionals to amateurs wanting to experience cricket development in a new culture and environment at some of the best grounds and facilities in the world.
WCA in its second year will cross revenues of $250,000 with one Director in London and one in Mumbai, with operations to expand to other parts of the world. WCA has set up a centre in Pretoria with the High Performance Centre and in Durban with Natal, to offer high quality programmes to its clients, it has also set up a centre in Sydney under the tutelage of Geoff Lawson for specialist fast bowling coaching, and in Perth at the Western Australian Cricket Association. Further, it has set up a centre in Sydney for younger individuals under the tutelage of Stan Gilchrist. In Colombo the centre is being managed by Russel Arnold a current Sri Lankan test player and in Bridgetown by Joel Garner.
New centres are now being discussed in Dubai and Dhaka. Further, the WCA have launched its own unique franchise model for the Indian market this winter with pilot projects being launched in western India - Nagpur, Mumbai, Pune, Nasik, Navsari. These centres will run independently by the franchisee and will provide a year round standardized and structured coaching format to participants.
The WCA's flagship are the International programmes where several programmes for junior teams and individuals from all over the world have been conducted with great success, the WCA now has some of the most aspiring youngsters in the world attending.
Spring of 2005 saw the WCA run special programmes structured for Essex and Middlesex counties with Graham Gooch and John Emburey taking these groups from their respective counties to the WCA in India for pre-season training and development. Nottingham CCC, GloucestershireCCC and Lancashire CCC players attended a second programme in March. Recently we had England's Ed Smith (Kent and England) attended the batsman's camp, as did Andrew Strauss (Middlesex and England) as well as Robin Martin-Jenkins (Sussex). The programme was conducted by WCA Head Coach Mr Hanumant Singh former Director of the National Cricket Academy, India, an ICC representative, as well as former Manager and Coach of the Indian team. He was ably supported by Mr Vasu Paranjape former India coach. The spinners programme was led by Mr B. Bedi and Mr E.A.S Prasanna. The WCA have also gone on to become the official managers of the entire Lords and Commons cricket tours and have conducted a research programme with the England Cricket Board (ECB) on spin bowling.
As mentioned above The World Cricket Academy has now put in place all plans for Franchise, Affiliate and Facility development operations. This will ensure high standards are maintained across the world at all WCA centers. With this in mind WCA has launched the Coach Development Programme, which is the WCA's own independent examination curriculum and structure to qualify coaches.
In addition WCA has launched Skills For Champs™ a structure to certify students, so that progress is monitored and quality in the system is maintained at all times. WCA is opening Franchises, Affiliates and Facilities with partners and wish to promote the structure to other parts of the world as well.
The first year will see ten WCA centers in each of the five zones in India, with a minimum of hundred students at each centre and a total of five thousand students receiving quality instruction at any given time. This will be followed by tournaments and skills competitions amongst the various WCA centers. The main thrust of the WCA centers will be focused outside of the metros in India. This is to ensure that opportunity is created where it is most needed bringing about a more level playing field across the country.
The WCA also firmly believe in constantly giving back to the community and have recently taken fifteen Afghani youths to India to learn cricket, as part of a Joy Through Cricket campaign. This will be an annual programme and we look forward to the continued support of various corporates and individuals to make this a huge success, and further enable us to take on other projects of this nature under the "Joy Through Sport" campaign.
In addition the WCA have also launched the World Sports Trust (WST) with the sole purpose of bringing sport to all, using corporates and celebrities to assist us in bringing purpose to the lives of youth across the world through the medium of sport.
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