Dainfern rewards cricket excellence

Dainfern College concluded their end of the cricket season with an annual dinner hosted by the Cricket Focus Group at the Dainfern Country Club on 27 March.

Cricket players and their families were invited to celebrate the season which will be marked as a successful one for both the prep and high school teams. The prep school first team played in the Independent Schools festival in Port Elizabeth during the February mid-term break and they won all their games. The high school first team toured to Kwazulu-Natal in February and played matches against Treverton College, Michaelhouse and Weston Agricultural College. They won all their games, with the highlight being the two matches against Michaelhouse which the team won by 40 runs and six wickets respectively.

In attendance at the dinner was Proteas bowler Lungi Ngidi who spoke about the importance of academics, persevering despite challenges and also emphasised the importance of listening to the coaches. Players were granted the opportunity to meet him afterwards.

The cricket captains of the two teams Nicolas Delport (prep) and Jordan White (high), addressed the guests. Jordan spoke about the team’s successes and how proud he was of the team which had flourished under the coaching of former SA player Ray Jennings. Jordan also mentioned how the cricket culture at the college had evolved, resulting in increased participation and success in the sport.

A highlight of the awards was the Ray Jennings Awards. The awards recognise a junior and senior player who had demonstrated beneficial and valuable sporting attributes throughout the season such as respect for fellow players, coaches and the game, ability, work ethic and all-around quality as a value-adding player. The junior recipient was Nicholas Delport and the senior recipient was Ockert van Stryp. Both players received a Kookaburra fever blitz cricket bat.

In explaining what criteria were used to select the winners of the event, College director of sport Tessa Shellard quoted Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid who said, ‘I think we judge talent wrong. What do we see as talent? I think I have made the same mistake myself. We judge talent by people’s ability to strike a cricket ball. The sweetness, the timing. That’s the only thing we see as talent. Things like determination, temperament, these are also talent.’

Shellard concluded, “A massive congratulations to all the players who participated so eagerly this season. The talent emerging is eminent as our cricket culture continues to thrive.”

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