We arrived in Dublin on Tuesday, June 7th as part of a new student exchange programme set up between Cricket Leinster and our school in Pretoria, South Africa, Menlo Park High School. After a 14-hour flight from Johannesburg, through Dubai, Brían O’Rourke, Cricket Development Manager for Leinster met us at the airport and took us to the Hills Cricket Club in Skerries. We were welcomed by a group of people from both Balbriggan and the Hills Cricket Clubs, the two clubs that would host us during our 8-week stay in Ireland. We enjoyed some pizza and cold drinks and played a little game of cricket with some of the lads in the dressing room.
We had a lovely stay in Ireland and the people were very welcoming everywhere we went. We want to thank the two families that hosted us, the Nulty and Walser families, for their hospitality and generosity during our stay. They really took good care of us and supported every game we played, whether at our respective clubs or even as far away as Longford.
The standard of cricket here surprised us somewhat and was a lot better than we expected. The pitches all round were very good and the wickets well taken care of. Our batting performances were good and each of us managed to score 100+ runs in a single match and our overall batting average was above 40 runs. With the ball we had an economy rate below 4.3 runs per over. We assisted in some of the Leinster under-age squad training sessions and even had the opportunity to bowl at the Irish, Sri Lanka and South African Women’s International teams at some of their training sessions.
We saw a lot of the beautiful country and visited a number of interesting sites. We learned a bit of the Irish history and culture and we had a great time overall in Dublin. We also made a lot of good friends during our time here.
We would like to thank everyone that made the experience possible, especially our school for allowing us some time off and to Cricket Leinster for arranging the exchange. The experience will stay with us for a long time and will certainly help us as individuals in the future. Also, thank you to the members of The Hills and Balbriggan Cricket Clubs for welcoming us with open arms and making us part of the Fingal and Leinster cricket family.
Thank you everyone, we are going to miss you all and hope to be back some time in future!
Slán libh.
Jaco (15) & Sebastian (16).