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IF WE want to be the best at cricket we must start at the bottom. That was the message from the Sports Minister, Tony Banks, as a group of children from Chase Bridge School, Twickenham, were shown the basics by Surrey and England opening batsman Mark Butcher at the indoor school at Lord's.

It was part of the latest Sportsmatch scheme - the Buxton MCC Cricket Challenge. The scheme has been designed to encourage about 10,000 children to participate in cricket from the age of three upwards in five counties - Lancashire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire and Gloucestershire.

Banks said: ``I grew up watching Locke, Laker and Loader. I also watched Stewart - not Alec - but his father, Micky. We played a lot of cricket; but we are not playing enough cricket in schools now. And it tends to show a bit at the moment. We have to go back to basics. Unless we are encouraging cricket at the grassroots, it's always going to be a great problem to beat the best in the world, and to be the best in the world.''

Tony Lewis, the president of MCC and a former Glamorgan and England captain, welcomed the latest scheme. ``This initiative is splendid,'' he said. ``I learnt my cricket on a dead-end road with 10 little houses in South Wales. We have to be conscious of the fact that at a grassroots level fewer and fewer are playing cricket. The ECB have made a brave start at the top, but we have to go to the grassroots of the game, too.''

The Daily Telegraph has extended its commitment to grassroots sport by teaming up as media partner with Sportsmatch for the scheme's 1999 awards, staged annually to recognise sports sponsorship. The awards will be held at Lord's in November, hosted by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Sportsmatch, first initiated in 1992 - under then Sports Minister Robert Atkins - in an effort to encourage business into sponsoring the grassroots of sport, has already designated 2,400 awards totalling £19 million across 72 sports, with sponsorship from 2,200 companies.

Sportsmatch matches pound for pound investment from commercial sponsors, with a minimum award of £1,000 and a maximum of £50,000. The awards are prioritised towards youth sport, schools (one third of the annual £3 million is earmarked for the schools sector), disability sports and community projects.

From April 1, the funding responsibility will transfer from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to the English Sports Council. To apply for an award the respective sports body - governing body, local authority, sports club or school - should find a commercial sponsor for the project and make a joint application. The procedure, from application to approval, is normally complete within 12 weeks.

For more information contact: Sportsmatch, Warwick House, 4th Floor, 25-27 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1 0PP. Tel: 0171 233 7747 or e-mail info@sportsmatch.co.uk