{"id":64393,"date":"2023-03-02T17:02:46","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T17:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=64393"},"modified":"2023-03-02T17:02:46","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T17:02:46","slug":"royal-recognition-for-life-long-bears-fan-and-youth-cricket-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/02\/royal-recognition-for-life-long-bears-fan-and-youth-cricket-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal recognition for life-long Bears fan and youth cricket coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

A life-long Bears fan has been honoured by the Prince of Wales for his dedicated community work during the Covid pandemic and contribution to youth cricket coaching.<\/p>\n

Tariq Ali \u2013 who\u2019s spent 20 years volunteering to help children in the player pathway system \u2013 received his MBE from the future king during a ceremony at Windsor Castle.<\/p>\n

But he admitted being equally excited to meet members of the Bears squad after the Club invited him to Edgbaston to watch some of the team\u2019s pre-season preparations!<\/p>\n

Tariq\u2019s son Ali contacted Warwickshire to say his father was a big Bears fan and that it would make his day if they could help him celebrate his MBE.<\/p>\n

The Club invited Tariq \u2013 who runs the Tayaba Mosque youth club in Wolverhampton plus youth cricket sessions with Chance to Shine and All Stars \u2013 to an indoor nets session where he met the players and later looked around the stadium.<\/p>\n

Son Ali said: \u201cDad has been involved in cricket for as long as he can remember. He\u2019s devoted a lot of time to the sport and helped in the region of 2,000 youngsters participate in and enjoy cricket.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo receive royal recognition for his work is incredible and for Warwickshire to help us mark the occasion with a stadium visit was lovely.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The 54-year-old has spent two decades coaching from grass-root all the way to performance pathway at Staffordshire \u2013 the Bears\u2019 minor counties affiliate club \u2013 and has captained one of the teams at Wolverhampton Cricket Club for 25 years.<\/p>\n

And during the Covid-19 pandemic Tariq\u00a0help set up rapid test centres in his home city of Wolverhampton.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI first came to\u00a0Edgbaston for a game back in 1987 for the England vs Pakistan test match. It was an amazing atmosphere and I\u2019ve been hooked on the ground and Warwickshire ever since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI occasionally bring children from the youth club over to watch Blast games and we\u2019ve got a few committed Bears\u2019 cubs in our ranks now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing to meet the players and watch them training in the nets. I can\u2019t wait to see them back out in the middle at Edgbaston next season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A life-long Bears fan has been honoured by the Prince of Wales for his dedicated community work during the Covid pandemic and contribution to youth cricket coaching. Tariq Ali \u2013 who\u2019s spent 20 years volunteering to help children in the player pathway system \u2013 received his MBE from the future king during a ceremony at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,3,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64396,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64393\/revisions\/64396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}