LEINSTER CRICKETERS IN SOUTH AFRICA

We left for South Africa on Saturday, January 6^th a week earlier that the other Leinster boys due to our participation at the annual Grahamstown schools’ festival. We landed in Port Elizabeth in the afternoon of Sunday, January 7th. We were both exhausted after such a long journey. We were met at the airport by Mr Lyntin Gouws the head of boarding at Muir College and his family. We drove 45 minutes out to Uitenhage, where had a brief look around the school and then got some much-needed sleep.

The next day we were straight into it as we had three days of training ahead of us with 1^st team coach Tim Whale and our new team. We both had a bat and bowl on the main pitch at Muir. This helped us get acclimatised to the heat and meet our new teammates who are all great fun. 

On Sunday, January 14th our team loaded the school bus and departed to Grahamstown for the Makhanda Festival which entailed two ‘declaration’ games and one ‘50 over’ game. On the Monday, we played our first game against Dale College. It is fair to say the school facilities in Grahamstown were top class. Each of the three hosting schools St Andrew’s, Graham and Kingswood had a selection of quality grounds to play on. There were ten schools present at the festival, several from Cape Town and Johannesburg and also a strong cricket school from Zimbabwe called Peterhouse.

The following week and another highlight of our trip so far was our visit to St George’s Park in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) to watch Sunrisers Eastern Cape play Lorcan Tucker’s Paarl Royals in the SA20 competition. Lorcan was a previous visitor to Muir College along with other well-known Leinster cricketers David Delany, Barry McCarthy, Jack Tector, Andy Balbirnie, Fionn Hand and George Dockrell.

A week and a half later, it was our first day at school and we got to meet everybody and look at our new routine. A typical day for us would start at 6:20am when we wake up for breakfast that starts at 7am. We then go to the nets and after this we assist with some of the junior school PE classes. School finishes at 2pm and on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we have 1^st team training. That normally involvestwo skills sessions and one middle practice session. After practice we usually chill out by the pool and then have dinner. After dinner we play rugby with the hostel boys and then we go to the gym while the boys are studying during their evening prep period.

Every week we have a 50 over match for the 1st XI on a Saturday and sometimes a T20 on a Wednesday. This has been a great chance to see different schools around the Eastern Cape. We have played 10 matches already and we are playing our last next Saturday against Galvin Hub. Following that, the rugby season starts, with the opening fixture being against local rival school Daniel Pienaar and a big crowd is expected at that.

To date we have played a number of different Eastern Cape schools including Graeme College, Union High, Brandwag, Woodridge, Westering and Framesby College. On Friday last, we played the touring Western Cape school York from George.  

We would like to thank Cricket Leinster for arranging this visit on our behalf and Mr Gouws who oversees us at the boarding establishment and Mr Whale who coaches us at the school most days.

We would also like to thank others at Muir College Mr Van Wyk, Mr Ngqondi, Mr Goeiman, Mr Mbelani, Mr De Vos and the Micheau family who have looked after us so well particularly at weekends. 

Dan and Luke Murray (St Michael’s College & Pembroke CC)