JOHANNESBURG - Reeza Hendricks put up a brave face as he struggled for runs at the start of the season. His smile was ever present, but it masked the anguish he was enduring as the hard work in training just wasn’t bearing fruit come game time.
There’s no need to put up a mask anymore - he’s still smiling, but now it’s the smile of someone who’s contributing to his team who are right in the mix in a tightly-contested Momentum One-Day Cup.
Hendricks was the Highveld Lions’ big-name pre-season signing, brought in to provide experience at the top of the order where the Lions needed cover for Stephen Cook who’s been away with the Proteas and Alviro Petersen, who’s been banned for his role in the RamSlam match-fixing scandal. Richly talented and
already capped at international level in the T20 format, there was a lot of expectation from his new employers and he sought to make an impression in a bigger city and increase his chances of more appearances for the Proteas.
But he struggled at the start of the season. He missed the first match with a back injury; he returned in the Jukskei Derby scoring 10 and 9 and then in his first meeting against his old team, the Knights, he made “a pair” in Kimberley.
His top score in the Sunfoil Series until the final round of the competition was 49 - it was not what the Lions had wanted when they signed him. His form in the T20 Challenge wasn’t great either, with just one half-century in seven
innings, but despite that, he was still included in the South African squad for the three T20 Internationals against Sri Lanka and scored 41 in his sole appearance in that series.
Upon his return to the Lions he registered his first century of the season, 112 against the Knights in the final match of the Sunfoil Series and, while the Lions got battered, for Hendricks it proved to be the turning point in his season.
“I ended the four-day competition well and took that
moment into the Momentum One-Day Cup,” he smiled.
In five innings in the 50-over competition he’s notched two centuries and his aggregate of 321 runs is second only to the Titans’ Henry Davids, who has scored 397 runs.
Last Sunday his unbeaten 142 was instrumental in the Lions claiming a bonus point win over the Knights at the Wanderers.
“It’s been an indifferent season,” said Hendricks.
“I started off slow, there were a couple of injuries. But I worked really hard through those phases, the times when I was struggling, and that hard work is paying off now.”
Hendricks said he recognises now that much of those early season problems were mental and stemmed from a desire to make an impression for his new franchise.
“When you’re going through a bad patch you’re trying to figure out where it’s
going wrong,” he said. “I wasn’t over-thinking, just trying to put in the hard work and follow the processes that I know from when I was doing well to get back to scoring runs again.”
With Lions coach Geoffrey Toyana calling on one of his batsmen to try and match Alviro Petersen’s feats from last season, Hendricks felt the pressure more keenly than most. Petersen scored five centuries - four of those coming in a row at the start of the competition.
“Being a senior player, there’s pressure. Alviro had a gun season last time, which led to them winning the cup, it will take one or two guys to match what he did. I’d like to be that man, to try to emulate what he did.
“The pressure from Geoff for me to do that is something I accept.”
The Lions currently sit third on the log, behind the Titans and Dolphins, but such is the nature of the competition this season that positions change from game to game.
The Lions head to Potchefstroom on Friday to face the Cape Cobras, who produced a
calamitous performance in the field in their loss to the Dolphins on Wednesday night.
Fixtures
Friday (start 2pm) - Bizhub Highveld Lions v BuildNat Cape Cobras, Potchefstroom; HollywoodBets Dolphins v Warriors, Durban
Sunday (start 10am) - BuildNat Cape Cobras v Warriors, Newlands; VKB Knights v Multiply Titans, Kimberley.