The last time Reeza Hendricks contributed significantly with the bat came against the team who now pays his wages.
Hendricks made 58 not out in March this year as the Knights inflicted a defeat that ultimately sunk the Highveld Lions’ chances of winning the Sunfoil Series. His highest score since then is 31, which came for South Africa 'A' against an Australian academy team on a recent tour Down Under. In four innings so far for his new employers he scored 10,9, 0 and 0 - not the sort of returns the Lions hierarchy nor Hendricks would have wanted.
Nevertheless, the 27-year-old right-hand opener has maintained a cheery disposition around his teammates and yesterday put in some hard work against a bowling machine, shoring up his defence and attempting to establish some rhythm ahead of the fourth round clash with the Warriors that starts at the Wanderers this morning.
“ He’s fine, he got two good ones in Kimberley, I’ m not too concerned,” said Dominic Hendricks, the Lions captain of his namesake. “He’s been doing all the right things in practice, and I feel that he’ll come right very, very soon.
“Someone’s going to run into him and it’s going to be a nice big one for him.”
Reeza Hendricks, along with Kagiso Rapulana, were the only top order batsmen from the Lions who missed out on scoring big runs on a flat Kimberley pitch last week. The Lions’ skipper is hopeful that last week’s heavy scoring - which saw Nickey van den Bergh and Wiaan Mulder both score centuries - will signal a change in fortune for the Lions’ batsmen.
“It was a good wicket in Kimberley, before then we’ d played on a few sporty wickets, so playing on a good wicket, the batters got a bit more confidence and we can expect more of that for the rest of the season,” said Hendricks.
The Warriors and the Lions have the same record after three rounds of the competition, both teams have won one, lost one and last week drawn one, too.
In Colin Ackerman, the Warriors bring with them the most in-form batsmen of the season thus far. The right-hander is 17 runs shy of 400 after just three matches.
Fixtures: Bizhub Highveld Lions v Warriors, Wanderers; Hollywoodbets Dolphins v VKB Knights, Kingsmead; BuildNat Cape Cobras v Multiply Titans, Newlands
The Star