Neil Ferreira interview - fighting back

There are perhaps more gifted players in Zimbabwe cricket than Neil Ferreira, but there cannot be any with a bigger heart. As a wicket-keeper/batsman he played a major role in Manicaland's spirited fight for the Logan Cup last season, scoring three determined centuries. They were not flamboyant affairs and they were scored against rather weak attacks, but they showed the grit and application of the man to the full.

On the strength of his Logan Cup successes, Neil was selected for the Zimbabwe A tour of Sri Lanka but, apart from a fifty in the opening match, he enjoyed little success. He was only the second wicket-keeper on the tour, understudy to Don Campbell, so on the face of it he had a disappointing tour. Then he returned to the new season to find that he had lost his place in the team and was not selected for the Zimbabwe Board XI.

Neil does not see it that way, though. "I really enjoyed it [Sri Lanka]," he says, "because it was my first tour with the A side. In my first game I got 52, and then 35 in the next. I never thought I was playing too badly; I just had a few unlucky umpiring decisions against me sometimes - normal cricket situations." In his next five innings he had three lbw decisions and one caught at the wicket, common complaints by cricketers visiting Sri Lanka.

"In one warm-up game I got a one and a nought, before the last 'Test', and I got dropped for that match," he continued. "I never got the opportunity to play in any of the one-day games. There was only one warm-up game and I think they wanted to see more of the one-day players, as Kevin Curran [the coach] hadn't seen too many of the guys play before."

Neil does not consider himself really to be a one-day player at present. "In one-day cricket I could bat six maybe, and score at a run a ball, but opening, especially with the method of pinch-hitting or hitting over the top in the first 15, I don't think I fit. It's not confidence; I think I could do it if I was given the licence to go in and do it, but I'm not comfortable doing it just yet. I normally just play myself in first.

"So Sri Lanka was a good experience and I enjoyed it. I thought I played okay. I was obviously disappointed not to play in the last 'Test', but I did play in the first two." Asked about the conditions there, he says, "It was extremely hot: the temperature was about 30 degrees but the humidity must have been in the nineties. You were soaked the whole time; you never evaporated so you never cooled down. You had to be drinking all the time. It was hard to concentrate in those conditions. I think we took flak because of those conditions, but the Sri Lankans hardly sweated, they were so used to it. And it was their cooler season! Kevin Curran didn't think we were fit enough because of the conditions, and we did a lot of fitness training.

"The pitches were a bit slow and they turned quite a bit," he recalls. "Once you were in for a while, I think they were quite easy to bat on; sure, they turned a lot but once you were in there it was fine. It was pretty hard to walk to the crease and start facing spin, but once you had been in for a while it wasn't too bad."

He did not get much chance to keep wicket on the tour, but in the First Unofficial Test Don Campbell, who was also playing, went down with food poisoning after the first day, so Neil stood in for him for a day and a half and took three catches.

On his return to Zimbabwe, during the off-season, he lived in Harare for about four months and spent a great deal of time in the gym and practicing at the Academy nets; he is far too dedicated to slacken off and take a long-term holiday. He made good use of bowling machines and other bowlers to keep his batting in trim.

He returned to Mutare in September for the new season but did not find runs easy to come by, being run out without scoring in the first game. Then came 29 in the next match before a break in the national league programme, but fortunately Neil was able to travel up and play for Harare Sports Club. His scores in three matches for them, as he remembers, were between 28 and 35, hardly enough to be really conspicuous as he was in the Logan Cup.

But league matches are played with a 50-over limitation, and Neil feels that this may have been an inhibiting factor. "I'm playing too many shots and getting out," he says. "When I walk to the crease I'm not finding it too difficult. It's the pressure of the 50-over game, trying to get on with it instead of just waiting."

Then came the match against first-league newcomers Winstonians last weekend. "The captain said, 'Listen, I want you to make 80 not out and be there at the end. So he gave me the licence just to sit on the handle if I wanted to and wait for the bad ball. They bowled me enough bad balls and I made 118 not out, so he was happy with that."

Winstonians do not have a daunting bowling attack and Neil cannot even remember the names of most of them. "They've only just come into the first league and they're a bit weak still," he admits. But it is a start to what he hopes will be his return to the eye of the selectors and a good booster to his confidence. Not as gifted as some, Neil may still struggle for a while against the top attacks, but with his determination it would be foolish to put a ceiling on his potential.

What pleased Neil the most about his innings? "I've been working on a few things, sweeping especially," he says, "and it was working really well - slog-sweeping if they put it outside off and hitting it over midwicket; if it's on the wickets fine-sweeping and sweeping square. It was working well and I was quite happy with that. I gave one chance, dropped in the slips when I had about 20-odd."

Neil's next aim is to get back into the Zimbabwe A/Zimbabwe Board XI and make his place secure, which would remove a lot of the pressure from his shoulders. "I still don't know why I was dropped; they never tell you," he says. "I don't even now if I was thought of! It was a bit upsetting, but I've got to keep trying." Neil will always do that.