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Johannesburg - Reeza Hendricks firmly announced himself as a player to look out for this season at the 2011 Emerging Players Tournament in Australia.
Hendricks, who turned 22 on Sunday, was named as the player of the tournament, after a brilliant performance with the bat in the three-day competition, where he scored 566 runs, including two double-centuries and a century.
Despite all of their three-day matches ending in a stalemate, the young South African squad can be satisfied with their performances, especially taking into account the calibre of the opposition. In all, they only had one defeat in seven matches and marginally lost out to India for the Pro20 competition title.
Along with Hendricks, Richard Levi and Stiaan van Zyl also impressed, with the latter scoring 225 runs in a match, before injury forced him out of the rest of the competition. Farhaan Behardien also notched up a century, with Mangaliso Mosehle and Temba Bavuma scoring half-centuries.
In the twenty-over format, Levi was the highest run-scorer with 113 runs, followed by Obus Pienaar (84) and Temba Bavuma (76).
Ethan O' Reilly was the standout performer with the ball, and was a handful in all three formats. He and Kyle Abbot were the joint leading wicket-takers for South Africa in the three-day competition, with 10 wickets apiece. Abbot had the best bowling figures of the tournament with 7 for 72 in the match against Australia Institute of Sport (AIS).
Pienaar (8 wickets) had the third best bowling average, and showed his all-round capabilities throughout the tour.
Coach Vincent Barnes will be pleased with the encouraging performances from the youngsters, who will be under his close watch as the High Performance Coach.
This tour is an important feeder to the Franchise system, and many of the players will hope that their performances will carry on to the upcoming domestic cricket season.
