The Hoërskool Wonderboom cricket team had a rare opportunity on Friday to be coached by the former Proteas and South African u.19 world cup winning coach, Ray Jennings.
Jennings visited the school in Wonderboom South for a Powerade Performance Session where he shared his wisdom and knowledge about the game to 18 pupils between the ages of 14 and 17.
He first gave the young players a lecture encouraging them to be disciplined and to remain focused to achieve their goals. He then took them to the oval and concentrated on cricketing skills.
Jennings said it was important to build their passion for cricket and thank Powerade for investing in the youth.
“We don’t really know where our next Proteas players will come from, they might come from a school like this,” Jennings said.
He said the young players needed both intelligence and talent to be able to make the right decisions.
“They need to utilise their brain power to make the right decisions and then they utilise their talent correctly,” Jennings said.
Hoërskool Wonderboom’s cricket captain, Morné Breedt, said it was awesome for a person like Jennings to share his cricket and coaching knowledge with them.
“I really want to become a Proteas player,” Breedt said.
The training session with Jennings came at the right time as the school prepares to defend their title in Moot night series at HTS John Voster in Pretoria from 27 to 30 October.
The team will be competing against Montana, Oos-Moot, and HTS John Voster.
Hoërskool Wonderboom’s cricket head coach Jurie Boshoff expressed his appreciation for the training session with Jennings.
“We are fortunate to have had Jennings with us today,” Boshoff said.
Jennings’ visit came after Hoërskool Wonderboom, together with five other South African schools won Powerade Performance sessions as part of the Powerade schools programme.
The other schools that have won the Powerade Performance sessions are Hoërskool Oosterland of Secunda in Mpumalanga, General Smuts High School in Vereeniging, Crestone College of Port Sheptone in KwaZulu-Natal and Wynberg Boys High of Cape Town in Western Cape.
Powerade brand manager Trivern Chetty said the Powerade Schools Programme had proved to be a success.
He said he had received interesting feedback from one of the schools that had undergone their programme.
“The school said after practising some of the drills we taught them, they were able to defeat a team they were unable to beat for the past five years,” Chetty said.
During the cricket performance sessions, young sportsmen were exposed to the science of correct training and the benefit of hydration to help them to reach peak fitness at the right time.
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