Reader Wayne Mandabva shares his cricket journey (and a great century story) with SACricketmag.com readers. 

I started playing cricket when I was just three years old. I live in Claremont and my dad found a club for me to start playing at, called Ryan Maron’s Cricket School of Excellence. I started attending clinics there over the holidays. It’s not very expensive there either.

I used to go to every single clinic during the school holidays. It was really nice because I would always meet new people and make friends. When I was about 11, I started playing matches which was really nice.

My biggest challenge that I started to encounter recently was that when I play a drive, my right shoulder and waist keep coming through. Every practice at school I started staying for an hour after practice and got throw-downs from my coach. I started trying to play later in my shots and with the ball under my eyes and it started to work. Now my top hand is dominating my bottom hand.

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My biggest memory in cricket was when I was at Ryan Maron’s holiday clinic (and at the time I was six years old) and we were playing a mini-match. I was fielding at mid-on and the boy who was batting tried to clear the infield to hit a boundary, but he mistimed it and I took a diving catch. Everyone was so surprised… and that was my best memory.

My best performance was last year when I scored 110 not out in a T20 match against All Rounders. When I got to 50 runs I had no idea that I was going to bat all the way through. After I hit a six the umpire told me that I had reached 100 – and I was amazed. That was the best memory of my life.

– Wayne Mandabva (14)