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The coach of the Northern Districts Maori cricket side says the team’s first overseas tour was a great step towards boosting Maori participation in the game.
Graeme Stewart, who also kept wicket, says a highlight of the trip to Rarotonga was playing near the place where waka left for Aotearoa.
The team played Cook Islands representative sides in a series of Twenty20 games, and Mr Stewart says that’s a format with great potential for Maori players.
"We’re focused on developing the Maori within the Twenty20 game as we have some very very big role models such as Jesse Rider, Trent Boult, Dusan Hakaraia, Anaru Kitchen and Kieran Noema Barnett from the Central Stags is their captain. So it's well suited to us and I've never been able to understand how we dominate world softball but we haven't, as Maori, made that transition in to cricket," he says.
Graeme Stewart says the Maori team plays its traditional fixture against Waikato University this summer, and it hopes to schedule further matches through the season.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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