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Cricket South Africa executive for domestic cricket Edward Khoza expressed excitement ahead of the federation’s Pathway awards, taking place in Johannesburg on Thursday.
The awards ceremony is designed to honour athletes and individuals who are excelling within CSA development structures.
Speaking to SABC Sport, Khoza says this is an annual platform set to inspire the next generation of national team players.
"Quite crucial in terms of motivating and developing our pathway. At the end of the season we want to recognise and reward players that have done well at the various levels of our pathways from Mini-Cricket right until professional cricket,” Khoza said.
“And part of this is just to make sure that we bring in our international players to be the ones that are more or less giving awards to these youngsters because it's part of also inspiring the next generation of cricketers to want to be Proteas in a way."
Khoza says their pathway programmes are key for talent identification and monitoring progress from grassroots to senior level.
"I mean, the pathway programmes that we operate are instrumental in making sure that we pave the way for future Proteas. I mean if you look at the recent achievement with the World Test Championship and you look at how many of these players have actually been part of the SA U19 in their journey or talent acceleration programme or cups, it just tells you the level of talent identification that happens,” he added.
“Because I think Dane Peterson probably is from some of the talent acceleration programmes that we've put in place. The rest of the players that were part of the Test Championship winning team have been part and parcel of our pathway programme, from the talent acceleration perspective as well as SA u19 identification programme and that's why it's very vital that we inspire the young generation players to see some of these awards."
