One Foot in the Door
MI Cape Town's Connor Esterhuizen hits the ball a long way
Welcome back to the Rookie Series. “The Rookie Series”, as the name suggests, features the six rookies picked by SA20 franchises at the 2023 auction. These pieces are designed to bring these incredible young players closer to you, the fans. They draw the curtain and allow you to look into their world. It should be really fun. This week’s article is on Connor Esterhuizen, the MI Cape Town’s rookie for 2024. Thanks, as always, for your support!
No. 1: Steve Stolk
No. 2: Ronan Herrmann
“Always stay humble. You are never two feet in, you’re never stable in a cricket side. Never ever. You never know, you could get injuries, you could get dropped… many things can happen for you to lose your place in the team. Always remember that you have one foot in the door at all times.”
These are the words that Connor Esterhuizen lives by. They keep him focused on self-improvement.
There is a concept in philosophy known as amor fati or love of one’s fate. Connor Esterhuizen was born with one foot in the door to the cricket world. He was barely 17 days old when he attended his first cricket match. It was a Thursday night indoor cricket match. Thursday nights were indoor cricket nights in the Esterhuizen household. More than 20 years later, Connor carries on the tradition when he is in Johannesburg.
His father, Gavin Esterhuizen, captained the Gauteng men’s and mixed teams. On weekends, Gavin captained the Bedfordview team. His wife, Vanessa played for the Gauteng ladies and mixed teams. Connor had the genes, but more than that, he was a freak of nurture. He spent most of his childhood hitting cricket balls with a mini bat. The bat had the word Batman emblazoned on the back, and he carried it with pride.
“As a little boy he was always on the side of the cricket field when his dad was playing, with a bat in his hand, always asking people to throw to him,” says Vanessa.
The Esterhuizens entertained a lot and whenever they had guests over for a braai, Connor cornered guests into throwing balls for him. Most of them were friends from the cricket leagues, and so they didn’t mind.
There was a pathway that led to a flatlet by the garage in the backyard of the Esterhuizens’ home. A pole stood at the end of the pathway. The pathway was the wicket and the pole acted as the stumps when people threw balls for Connor. It was also here that Gavin taught the boy how to hold the bat and demystified the art of batting to his son.
In his book Hidden Potential, Adam Grant speaks about scaffolding in this vein, "In construction, scaffolding is a temporary structure that enables work crews to scale heights beyond their reach. Once the construction is complete, the support is removed. From that point forward, the building stands on its own. In learning, scaffolding serves a similar purpose. A teacher or coach offers initial instruction and then removes the support. The goal is to shift the responsibility to you so you can develop your own independent approach to learning."
With that paragraph, Grant summed up Gavin’s role in Connor’s development, beyond genetics.
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“Connor was a dream student,” says Justin Sammons. Esterhuizen had natural talent, that is the first thing Sammons noticed when the boy turned up for a kids’ tournament. Esterhuizen scored a century against Sammons’ Eastern Gauteng outfit. Sammons offered Esterhuizen a bursary to St. John’s on the spot.
The scholarship was a boon for Esterhuizen. His father passed away when he was 10, and that meant that if he wanted to attend a strong cricketing school, his mother would need some help with his tuition. “As a single mother, things weren’t always easy for me financially,” says Vanessa.
That reality was not lost on Esterhuizen. He looked after his gear much more carefully than before because he developed an awareness of the fact that if one item broke, he might not be able to replace it. Instead of always bothering his mother for new bats, he became industrious, often raiding Renato Almeida’s bag for bats. Almeida was one of the family friends whom Esterhuizen often cornered into throwing balls for him when he was around four or five years old.
By not always waiting for his mother to ‘make a plan’ for him when he needed a new bat or a piece of equipment, Esterhuizen took ownership of his development. He also learned how to problem-solve, a trait he took to his batting and wicket-keeping.
“It's a standing joke. He's always the last one to leave the changing room because he is so meticulous with putting his packing his bag properly. Everything has a place and the straps have to be perfect. The whole team, everybody in all the teams he played in, Wits, St. John's, whatever, he is always the last one out of the changing room, the last one to get to the car because he's packing his bag so meticulously,” says Vanessa.
His precision with his gear matched the precision of his shots. As a teen, Esterhuizen’s technique was perfect, the teenager made it look easy on the eye. He had grace. “He was not mechanical and more importantly, he did not look as if he had been overcoached,” says Sammons.
From the moment Sammons met him, Esterhuizen exuded the natural good-natured humility valued in Afrikaans culture. All of these qualities caught Sammons’ eye at the trials, but what impressed the coach more was what he saw after Esterhuizen joined St. John’s.
“Some players have to be spoon-fed. Connor was not one of those players. Yes, he was coachable, but he figured things out himself, as as a result led his development,” says Sammons.
Connor Esterhuizen on his SA A debut against India A in December 2023.
Whether it’s football, baseball, basketball, rugby, American football… whatever sport one can think of, athletes that go on to make it as professionals have one thing in common, they succeed because of a solid support structure with the family at the centre.
Athletes who have made it to elite levels have at least one dependable, loving parent or surrogate parent or guardian, such as a grandparent or elder sibling. "Positive family attitudes towards playing contribute to children’s self-confidence and motivation to continue sport," Tim Wigmore wrote in The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made.
Vanessa Esterhuizen did all she could for her son. Together with her daughter, they were the dynamic duo that gave Esterhuizen the strength to keep going. “His mother and sister were at every match he played,” says Justin Simmons comment.
But they couldn’t do it alone. They had help. Renato Almeida took up the role of mentoring Esterhuizen. In 2019, Almeida noticed that something was wrong at one of their regular golf games. After some gentle prodding, Almeida learned that Esterhuizen was seriously considering giving up on cricket. He had missed out on the Gauteng Khaya Majola Week team and felt unseen. After making all the age group teams and performing well in them, Esterhuizen felt that his talents were under-appreciated.
Coke Week is viewed in the same light as Cubs Week and making the SA Under-19 teams. It is a springboard for a young cricketer's career. Being snubbed for the Gauteng Coke Week squad was a big blow to Esterhiuzen’s confidence. “He was like, ‘Mom, I actually don't know what more I need to do to get selected for these big teams.’ In his 2019 year, he was the highest run-scorer in the province and batsman of the tournament at the St David’s tournament. He had scored a major number of runs but didn't cut it. So he said, ‘Okay, you know what, I'm going to give cricket a break for a bit,’” says Vanessa.
Almeida had to step in to help, “I urged him to keep pushing. But, he needed more than encouragement, so I sat down with him and Vanessa to discuss the way forward for him to go through to play first-class cricket.” The plan was for Esterhuizen to turn into a player no one could overlook. They agreed that he had to average over 80 in the premier league for Wits. Esterhuizen also had to register a minimum of four centuries, two of which were a big 100 and then a double 100.
But, before Esterhuizen could see through the plan, COVID hit and he had to put the plan on hold. When the premier league resumed, he went after his goal. He announced himself with a double hundred for the Colts. He also dominated for Wits. He averaged 95 in the premier league with four centuries to his name. In March 2022, Esterhuizen made his List A debut and announced his arrival with a match-winning 52 for the Lions. He had one foot in the door.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS