The community of Thohoyandou Block F celebrated Youth Day in style, when they engaged themselves in a game of cricket.

Hundreds of people filled the Thohoyandou Technical School grounds for the annual Venda Technical Cricket League finals. Twenty-two teams from the Thohoyandou, Makhado and Giyani areas took part in the elimination process, which started five months ago.

The defending champions, Choice XI of Makhado, were eliminated in the initial stages of the competition and in the final, Zaid Cosmetics Homeboys and Disa XI met each other, with Zaid Cosmetics beating Disa by five wickets.

Disa XI batted first and scored 160 runs in their allotted 20 overs. Homeboys struggled to 92/5 after 12 overs. The captain, Zahir Sufi, and Soyaib Radiya held things together, however, and managed to reach 161 runs, with only four balls to spare.

The winners and the runners-up received big trophies as prizes. Soyaib Radiya was voted the Man of the Match and Usman Radiya was the Man of the Series.

Tournament coordinator Irafan Bapuji said they hosted the tournament on Youth Day in order to be part of the national celebrations. "We are part of the community. We felt this day deserved to be observed in a special way and a game of cricket was the first thing we thought about. We are also encouraging our youth to take part in sport which will also help take them off the streets and we are very happy that they responded in their numbers," he said.

He said there was still a gap as not many blacks took part in the game, which is very popular among Indians. "We are calling on all our youths to dedicate their time to their school work and also to take part in sport as this is the only that can shape them for a better future. We will continue hosting these games for the sake of our youth," added Bapuji.

Community leader Mr Muktar Saifi urged the youth to refrain from using drugs and to concentrate on their studies.