Dartford Cricket Club’s Junior section is a centre of excellence for boys and girls aged between 6 and 17 who want to learn to play cricket. We are renowned for having a strong junior section and a rich history of placing a firm emphasis on youth development in our senior sides.

Our philosophy is simple – to provide excellence in cricket education, and more importantly, help all juniors have fun and enjoy playing cricket.

We provide cricket for all abilities and seek to identify talented players for progression to our internal Academy and on to District and Kent level. This ensures talented players can accelerate their development within a structured environment. The Junior section also encourages all parents to become involved; parents and families are at the heart of the club.

Membership includes a personalise shirt and Monday night coaching from mid April to end of August, coaches will access all players & inform managers for the match selections. Membership does not automatically guarantee playing in hard ball matches until approve by the head coach.

All Stars & Dynamos Cricket

In recent years we have also run two, new ECB programmes, All Stars and Dynamos Cricket, which aim to give young children a fun, safe introduction to the sport. These sessions prove to be increasingly popular as the game returns to terrestrial television via The Hundred in recent years.

Junior cricket philosophy

The key elements of team performance, which form the basis of the Academy philosophy and approach, are:

• Good aggressive running between the wickets
• Every player being able to bowl consistently straight – giving away few wides and no-balls
• Bowling straight to enable an off-side field to be set
• Good tight pressure in the field
• Bowling our overs quickly

These are small pieces of the overall ‘jigsaw’ which is how we want our junior teams to play the game as they grow up. We embed these traits early on so that we will see them become the hallmarks of the Dartford teams of the future.