Dirk Viljoen - a short biography

FULL NAME: Dirk Peter Viljoen

BORN: 11 March 1977, at Harare

MAJOR TEAMS: Young Mashonaland (1994/95-1995/96); Mashonaland (1996/97- ); present club team Old Hararians.

KNOWN AS: Dirk Viljoen

BATTING STYLE: Left Hand Bat

BOWLING STYLE: Slow Left Arm

OCCUPATION: Draughtsman

FIRST-CLASS DEBUT: Young Mashonaland v Mashonaland Country Districts, at Alexandra Sports Club (Harare), 15 September 1995

TEST DEBUT: 14 March 1998, v Pakistan, at Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo

ODI DEBUT: 3 April 1997, v Sri Lanka, at Sharjah

BIOGRAPHY (revised November 1999)

Late in the 1996/97 season, Zimbabwe's selectors caused a surprise by introducing a very promising left-handed batsman, Dirk Viljoen, who had just turned 20 when he went to Sharjah as part of the national side. Neither was this the end of his overseas trips for the season, as on 24 May he travelled to Australia on a month-long scholarship to the Australian Academy, an annual award to a promising young Zimbabwean cricketer jointly sponsored by the Australian High Commission and Qantas.

Since then, though, this promising batsman has had a mixed career. He has always remained on the fringes of the international team, given the occasional match but without distinguishing himself. It took him until the 1999/2000 season to record his maiden fifty in first-class cricket, by which time he had already played in a Test match and nine one-day internationals. It has been his promise and his positive, determined attitude more than anything else that have kept him in the selectors' eyes and still give hope of a significant career in the future.

Dirk was first introduced to the game at a very young age by his father, who was a Mashonaland Country Districts player; Dirk names him as his major inspiration and remembers with gratitude all the help and coaching he was given. It has been by no means plain sailing from the beginning, though, as he confesses to having been a very weak player at colts level in his junior school, Eaglesvale, a non-bowler who batted at number ten. It was at this stage that his father stepped up the coaching and encouragement, and he has never looked back.

He improved enough to be scoring fifties and sixties, and was chosen to play for the Mashonaland team in the national primary schools week; he also attended the Under-13 trials, captaining his team, and was made a reserve for the national team. At Under-15 level he was selected for the Fawns, the national side, having attended the trials at Plumtree and playing a match against Matabeleland Under-16 side. In his second-last year at high school, he came on in leaps and bounds, scoring four centuries and averaging about 60. His 'gentle' left-arm spin was also developing well, and he averaged about 11 with the ball. He was twice chosen for the national schools team to attend the South African Schools Weeks, in 1994 and 1995, at Durban and East London respectively. He did well enough to average about 50 at Durban, and at East London scored a fifty against Griqualand West.

Following this, he went overseas for a year and played a season for a team in Coventry, averaging about 60 and recording a century in one match. On his return, he was selected to captain the Zimbabwe Under-19 team to South Africa over New Year 1997, beginning with 89 and 50 in the first three-day game against Easterns, and 200 not out and 22 in the second match against North-Western Transvaal. His bowling was less conspicuous, but he has definite ambitions to become an all-rounder at international level. He practises seriously against national players, which he says has forced him to improve his line a lot. He was given a spell in the spinners' camp while at the Australian Academy in Adelaide in 1997 and learned more there. He is still generally seen only as a part-time bowler, though, and recognises the need for consistency, in particular cutting out the regular one bad ball per over.

Dirk enjoyed a good league season in 1996/97, scoring two centuries, and such was his potential that he was chosen for the powerful Mashonaland side in the Logan Cup ahead of such players as Glen Bruk-Jackson and Danie Erasmus. He has often opened the batting in his first-class games; while he tends to prefer the middle order, he is quite willing to open, and this was actually his role when he made his Test debut, although it appeared to have been a wrong decision by the selectors. Dirk first read in the newspaper that he was a possible candidate for the scholarship to the Australian Academy, before he was approached by Ian Robinson, in his role as ZCU administration manager, and told that he had received the vote.

He was naturally very much in the selectors' minds at the start of the 1997/98 season, and a strong candidate as Grant Flower's opening partner for the Tests against New Zealand. But fine early form saw Gavin Rennie take the position and make it his own. Dirk had still not yet produced high enough scores at first-class level, although it was not for want of trying and hard work. Unfortunately, with such a restricted Logan Cup programme, opportunities were limited.

Dirk is working as a draughtsman in Southerton, Harare, but his current priority is cricket and he has ambitions to become a full professional. His company, he says, is very good to him and give him time off to play whenever he needs it. At club level he has played for Old Hararians for the past five years, after his school had been approached by the club which was looking for good young players. He played a season in the second team, with the odd senior game when the national players were away, and did well enough to retain his place when they returned.

Dirk plays tribute to the Test players, most of whom he says are very helpful to him. Dave Houghton, also an Old Hararians player, has given him a great deal of help when not on national team duties, while Paul Strang has also been a great help, especially on the mental side of the game.

As a batsman, Dirk is a strong driver off the front foot, although short balls do not bother him. Remarkably, he played for Zimbabwe in Sharjah despite not yet having scored a first-class fifty, as the selectors continue their enterprising policy of identifying and exposing gifted players early on. He remembers being phoned at work by Dave Houghton and told he was in the national squad for training and should attend net practice; after about three weeks, he heard that he was in the side for Sharjah. It was not the first time he had trained with the national players, as he had also done so before the England tour, but this was the first time he had been included in a specific small group with a tour in mind.

In Sharjah he filled the place vacated by Dave Houghton, absent coaching Worcestershire, and his scores of 17, 22 and 25 showed great skill under rather difficult and unfamiliar conditions. "It's a big jump from facing bowlers here who bowl you two half-volleys and a short ball every over to guys like Mushtaq Ahmed and Chaminda Vaas who don't give you any width or any free balls," he says. He names Mushtaq Ahmed as the most difficult bowler he has had to face, especially on the Sharjah pitch where the ball was turning sharply, especially from the rough -- but Mushtaq did not get his wicket while he scored 25.

He toured Sri Lanka and New Zealand with the national side, but only played in one first-class game altogether, a warm-up match in New Zealand. He did play four one-day internationals in that country, though, and his 36 in his first opportunity was the highest score of the innings. But batting at number seven or eight in one-day cricket is to be virtually on a hiding to nothing, with little or no chance of a big innings and plenty of room for failure, and he did not succeed again.

He won a surprise Test debut on his return to Zimbabwe. Gavin Rennie had failed in New Zealand, as had the team as a whole, and the selectors appeared to be desperate when they dropped him for the First Test against Pakistan and asked Dirk to open with Grant Flower. Again the likelihood of failure was too great; he had to open against bowlers of the quality of Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar armed with the new ball and without a first-class fifty behind him, and he failed to score in either innings. He was promptly dropped for the Second Test and Rennie reinstated.

That has been his only Test appearance to date, although the 1998/99 season brought him greater success than before with the bat. He had spent a season in England, when he had gone over to visit relatives and ended up playing for Barnt Green, thanks to the help of Andy Flower. He was learning to play straighter and to concentrate on spending time at the crease. At last the elusive fifty came, fore Mashonaland A against Matabeleland in Bulawayo, and with 92 he almost turned it into a century. Later in the season he recorded two more against England A, from whom he learned a great deal more about batting. He had played larger innings in the past for the Zimbabwe Board XI, in non-first-class fixtures; now he recorded 155 against Namibia and 100 against Border B. Promise was gradually turning into productivity.

He was selected for the World Cup in England in 1999, although many considered him fortunate to get the vote ahead of Craig Wishart, who had begun the season most impressively while opening the innings. He played in only one match, that against Australia at Lord's, scoring 5 before being given out stumped in controversial circumstances; many felt that there was insufficient evidence on the camera replay for the third umpire to rule him out.

In the 1999/2000 season to date he has not been selected for any further international cricket, and he will find it harder in the future as competition for places is always increasing. But with his attitude to the game a return is always likely, and now that he has discovered the art of building a larger innings further progress is virtually assured. Alistair Campbell names him as a gutsy player who goes out and gives 100% all the time, although Dirk himself acknowledges a tendency to throw his wicket away when he should be well set for greater things. But the best of Dirk Viljoen is surely still to come.