On the weekend of 18-19th of June, Belgrade will host a historic event. For the first time in its cricket history, the U-13 and U-15 teams of Serbia will play an international match. The guests are the old SCF sport friends – Slovenian Cricket Association.  Apart from the youth matches (T20 format), the matches will be played also by the senior sides.

The Serbian youth cricket development program started in September 2015 with focus on elementary schools from three Belgrade municipalities – Stari Grad, New Belgrade and Palilula, and on school kids from the village of Bački Monoštor. So far 2016 U15 Serbian T20 Championship has involved over seventy kids from the sides of Mirijevo CC, Stari Grad CC, Sava CC and Centurion CC.. After nine months of practice and league matches, Serbian young cricketers will get the chance to represent their country. The selectors are two main youth coaches – Bogdan Dugić and Dragan Đokić.

The SCF chairman, Haris Dajč stated that “We are extremely satisfied with what we have achieved since we have become an ICC affiliate. Our focus has been on development of grassroots cricket in elementary schools and that task SCF coaches have performed admirably. We are also happy that our kids will play Slovenia for the first match, taking into account the traditional friendship between our two federations that has lasted since our first away match, in Mežica, Slovenia in 2009. This won’t be the end of the spring season for kids, though, as the weekend after the match they will have the opportunity to be coached for three days by Ivan Kristensen, the Danish U15 coach, from whom both our young players and coaches will learn a lot”. 

Regarding the match series of the senior sides, the national team captain, Vladimir Ninković announced the following short-list. Batters – Vladimir Ninković, Slobodan Tošić (Mirijevo), Apon Mustafizur (Sava), Wintley Burton, Sakib Hasan (Stari Grad); WK – Adrian Dunbar (Stari Grad), Dragan Đokić (Mirijevo); All-rounders – Bilal Ahmed, Nebojša Đurić, Edward Lee Van Rennen (Stari Grad), Rifat ul-Islam (Sava); Bowlers – Ian Bancroft (Mirijevo), Haris Dajč, Nikola Lazović (Sava), Bogdan Dugić , Boško Didanović (Stari Grad). 

The match schedule is as follows: 

Saturday, 18th June:  10am – Serbia U13 – Slovenia U13 (T20)

         1pm – Serbia – Slovenia (40 over match)

Sunday, 19th of June: 10am – Serbia U15-Slovenia U15 (T20)

         1pm – Serbia –Slovenia (T20)