Cambridge High School pupils pick up the pace

ABU DHABAI // Cambridge High School is becoming a hotbed for cricket and rugby after pupils got an appetite for the two sports in inter-school tournaments.

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Cambridge reached the final of the Under 16 cricket tournament while three pupils were selected for the Abu Dhabi Combined School U16 rugby union team after taking part in the inter-school tournament for the first time last season.

"Cricket and rugby are popular sports among the boys and it has just picked up pace after the introduction of the inter-school competitions," Olaf Gomez, the head of physical education, said.

Moaaz Qazi won the Man of the Tournament award in last year's U16 inter-school cricket tournament and was selected to play for the Emirates Cricket Board Blues, a feeder team for the national team. He is joined by another ECB Blues player, Shivank Vijaykumar, the wicketkeeper batsman, who recently joined the school.

Andre Di Beer, Mohammed Gaith and Bilal Passela were the pupils selected to represent the combined schools rugby team.

"The school has always encouraged sports and with more and more competitions like cricket and rugby being introduced in the last two years, the demand to play for the school teams has risen remarkably," Gomez said.

"Sports are something every student enjoys. [They] have been participating in football competitions for over 10 years and besides they also compete in other sports like basketball, volleyball, netball and table tennis."

In football, they have had more success in the inter-school competition organised by Al Jazira. The girl's team won the U13, U15 and the U19 titles and the boy's won the U9, U13 and U15 divisions while the senior team were runners-up.

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