Kyle Being Kyle
Kyle Verreynne playing against Australia
Kyle Verreynne finds himself in familiar territory, where his doughtiness has been called upon.
Hello, welcome to Stumped! If you are not yet a subscriber, join more than a thousand other professional athletes & ex-pros, coaches, commentators & analysts and casual sports fans that receive the newsletter in their inbox each week — it’s free:
In 1907, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire met in a county match. The two teams scored a total of 200 runs in four innings. Gilbert Jessop scored the most and second-most runs of the match with 24 and 22 from his first and second innings.
This kind of thing happens in cricket. One batter just stands head and shoulders above the rest.
In the pre-Bazball era, Joe Root developed a habit of doing this. Not so much on Jessop's level in that county match, but, on more than one occasion, England scored a lot of runs when Joe Root scored a lot of runs. He was England's Brian Lara for a bit. That is also a role that Kyle Verreynne has played for much of his career, starting as early as his Wynberg Boys’ High School days.
Verreynne was not the first choice for the Jacques Kallis Scholarship that allowed him to study at Wynberg Boys' High. Dayyaan Galiem was the intended recipient. But, after Galiem turned it down in favour of Rondebosch Boys’ High, Eric Lefson had to find an alternative kid to award the scholarship to.
He was intent on ‘not letting the scholarship go to waste.’ So he dedicated a lot of time to scouting young talent. He consulted with a few mates, and a bunch of them recommended that he have a look at this ginger-haired kid from Edgemead.
There are batters like David Bedingham. Bedingham is all natural talent, plus textbook style/stance and high confidence levels. They are a beauty to watch and will blow you away. To understand Bedingham’s style, one simply has to go through the MCC Coaching Manual.
The MCC coaching manual was written by a chap called Henry Altham in 1952. He put it together with the 'noble purpose to offer schoolteachers with a quick and easy way of helping children who had never played cricket before.' Somewhere along the line, it turned into a sacred handbook that defined the only way batters were meant to play the game.
Batters that do not look like cutouts from Altham's manual are regarded as lacking in ability. One would think it was handed down to Altham from a mountain by the cricket gods as tablets and was later adopted by mankind.
On the opposite end of players like Bedingham there are players like Kyle Verreynne with styles that are from individual, personalized manuals that they write themselves, and not from the pages of the MCC coaching manual. Verreynne’s style was developed in the same way that he developed his wicketkeeping. He does what feels comfortable.
Verreynne did not have a specialist wicketkeeping coach until he reached the SA Under-19 level, where he had his first contact with a keeping coach. After that, he employed the services of Ezra Poole. Before then, all he did was stand behind the stumps and try to catch the ball.
This Substack column exists thanks to patrons and readers that leave tips. Stumped! is wholly supported by Readers Like You. To keep the weekly posts coming and to keep the lights on here, consider leaving a tip or supporting monthly on Patreon. You won’t regret it!
“I was about 20 or 21 years old when I started working on my keeping as a skill. Faiek Davids our coach at Western Province, then it was the Cobras, got me in touch with Ezra Poole,” says Verreynne. “Before then, all I did was rock up to a match and keep at the game. The only time I did work on it in training was when guys were doing fielding drills and I did a bit of keeping stuff.”
Verreynne is all eyes and rhythm. Players like that often found themselves being taught to discard their homespun styles by adherents to the manual. Verreynne was lucky that did not happen to him during his formative years or during his time at the Cape Cobras, now Western Province, under Ashwell Prince.
Lefson oversaw the development of both Bedingham and Verreynne. Bedingham blew him away at first sight. Verreynne did not. But, the Wynberg master saw something in the ginger-haired youth. He had not seen many youngsters with hands as good as Verreynne’s. Verreynne played the ball so late that Lefson felt as if he was watching an older player and not a 14-year-old.
A few days later, Lefson visited Verreynne's mother at work with the offer. A short while later, just as it did with Bedingham, Wynberg's success depended on how well Verreynne did with the bat. The difference was that Bedingham had a better supporting cast than Verreynne. At the Under-19 World Cup, Verreynne’s star was bright and the rest of the South African team was dimly lit.
This is a role that he also has had to adopt at Cape Cobras, now Western Province, every now and then.
“At Wynberg, everyone was looking at him for the big performances to save the game. He didn’t have the luxury to relax,” Lefson says.
“Some players are technically inclined,” says Ashwell Prince. They better their game by paying attention to their movement and style of play. Theunis de Bruyn is like that. Others gravitate towards the development of soft skills. That is Verreynne’s area.
His capacity to withstand and overcome hardship has always been called upon. He is battle-hardened. Verreynne has always flourished in this environment, it draws out his competitive instincts and the will to never back down.
With so few caps under his belt, Verreynne would not have expected to play that role so early in his Test career but he has had to do so in the two Tests against Australia in Australia. While fans and others moan about his technique, he has had to stand tall and put runs on the board when everyone else has failed. At the Gabba, he had to do it alone. In Melbourne, he had Marco Jansen’s support. Either way, that is the story of his career, having to fight for everyone around him.
