England star cricketer Jimmy Anderson made dreams come true when he met young players at Battersea’s Sacred Heart School, writes Grainne Cuffe.

Before travelling to South Africa for the current test series, Mr Anderson called to the school to meet the youngsters to come up with great new ideas for the game as part of the Toyota Future of Cricket project.

Mr Anderson said: "I really enjoyed listening to their ideas.

"As you would expect from young kids there have been some really off-the-wall suggestions, but they have also had some really clever ideas which would not look out of place in a real cricket game."

The children, who are some of two million nationwide learning to play though the Chance to Shine charity, came up with ideas such as stumps exploding with confetti when a bowler makes a direct hit and a "blocker" wearing American football-style armour to hamper the batsmen running between the wickets.

Mark Costin, the school’s head of PE, said: "This is a really exciting project and we're delighted to be involved.

"It's hard as an adult to put into perspective how cool it is as a kid to meet someone like Jimmy Anderson."

A short film showing the children describing their ideas and sharing them with Mr Anderson can be viewed here.