Neil Ferreira - updated biography

FULL NAME: Neil Robert Ferreira
BORN: 3 June 1979, at Harare
MAJOR TEAMS: CFX Academy (1999); Manicaland (1999/2000 to date).
Present club team: Mutare Sports Club
KNOWN AS: Neil Ferreira
BATTING STYLE: Left Hand Bat
BOWLING STYLE: Off Breaks (rarely). Wicket-keeper.
OCCUPATION: Professional cricketer

FIRST-CLASS DEBUT: Zimbabwe Cricket Academy v Australian Cricket Academy, at Alexandra Sports Club, 27-29 March 1999
TEST DEBUT: Awaited
ODI DEBUT: Awaited

BIOGRAPHY (updated April 2002)

Many promising young cricketers in Zimbabwe enjoy the blessing of coming from strong cricketing families, and former Zimbabwe Cricket Academy student Neil Ferreira is one of those. Given every encouragement without undue pushing by his family, he enjoys an enviable background, but players such as he still have to make the decision themselves to strive for the heights. This is what Neil is doing.

Neil's father Andy, well known for his work in junior cricket circles, has played the game enthusiastically all his life, and Neil and his two brothers have eagerly followed in his footsteps. Andy used to play league cricket in Harare for Standard Bank, and still plays Mashonaland Country Districts cricket for Selous, the area of the family farm southwest of Harare towards Chegutu. Neil's older brother Graham is a former Zimbabwe Under-19 player who has just finished university in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, and is currently playing for Harare Sports Club alongside Neil; he has also represented Manicaland. His younger brother Michael played for the national Under-15 side and captained the Falcon College team, with his sights set on making the national Under-19 side to make it a family hat-trick.

Neil does not have many specific memories of his father's encouragement while he and his brothers were young, but he does remember going to watch him play, and that they always seemed to have little cricket bats or balls in their hands to play the game. Andy still comes to watch and support his sons whenever they play. They used to play in their back garden, but have now transferred their `pitch' to the tennis court, where they do not have to chase their big hits so far! They have now introduced to the game a number of their farm workers, who enjoy throwing (rather than bowling) to the boys. Neil assumes also that Andy introduced them to the basics of the game, as they had quite a start over their schoolmates when they began formal cricket.

The boys attended Lilfordia Primary School where they could hardly have had more encouragement, the head at that time being Mr Iain Campbell, father of Test cricketer Alistair. Neil won a place in the school's Colts team, playing among boys two years older than himself, at the age of eight. He was an occasional member in his first year, but was thereafter a regular, going on later to two years in the school first team. He showed talent as a wicket-keeper right from the beginning, and that was how he established himself in the team. His batting developed later. He remembers scoring 79 against Lomagundi and taking no fewer than seven stumpings against St John's at colts level. The late Mr Evan Davies, father of former Mashonaland player Kallin Davies, was the colts coach, and he gave the boys much individual coaching on technique.

In his final year at Lilfordia, Neil was chosen for a Districts primary school team that toured England, and also represented the Districts for no fewer than three years in the annual inter-provincial primary schools cricket week, being selected for the national side, the Partridges, in the last two years. In his final year he scored a sixty and a seventy in the inter-provincial matches, and also took a large number of catches and stumpings.

Neil also benefited from attending Falcon College, at Esigodeni in Matabeleland, for his high school, where he received quality coaching and also had the opportunity to spend hours developing his skills in the afternoons, which he did with a friend. He was captain of his age-group side in each of his first three years, two other members of the team also being former Partridges players. In Form Three he represented the Zimbabwe Under-15 team, the Fawns, in South Africa, keeping wicket and scoring a fifty in one match. He scored a century in each of his first three years at high school, with a best of 127 not out in Form 3, although he cannot remember the opposition.

He progressed to the school first team in Form Four, but the position of wicket-keeper was already taken, so he opened the batting and fielded, finding that he enjoyed the experience of being in the outfield for a change. He decided to give up keeping altogether, and played just as a batsman for the rest of his school career. He did try to become a bowler of off-breaks, like his brothers, but had no success.

In his final two years he was selected for the Zimbabwe schools team to tour South Africa as a specialist batsman, and also toured England in 1997 to play against the England Under-19 team, a most enjoyable experience but with limited personal success. He was never to score a century for his school first team, although in the final year he averaged over 60 and recorded several eighties. His coaches at Falcon, he remembers, included Dave Clement, Dave Grant, who has now taken over the first team, and Mr Harrison, who all worked hard with their teams.

He was by now playing regular club cricket for Bulawayo Athletic Club, encouraged by a Mr Brown, father of a schoolmate, who encouraged Falcon boys to join the club. He started playing while in Form 4 and scored several fifties for the team. In the winter he played for Good Hope Country Club, based on the Streaks' farm at Turk Mine, where his uncle also played. In the summer holidays at home he and his older brother Graham used to practise at Harare Sports Club.

At the end of his school career Neil played in the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa, where Zimbabwe did well to reach the second round, beating the West Indies, and finished eighth overall. He had no ambitions to go to university but wanted to stay in cricket, so he took a coaching course with former New Zealand Test player Bob Blair, who was coaching in Matabeleland at that time, and did some coaching with him, paid by the Matabeleland Board. He was thrilled to be selected for the Matabeleland Select XI to play the Pakistan tourists in a one-day warm-up match in March 1998, where they had the opposition struggling at 120 for five before rain intervened. He managed to get a job as room attendant for the Zimbabwe team during the Bulawayo Test match that followed.

He was playing club cricket for Queens Sports Club at that time, having been approached by the club to move from BAC, and scored a century in the knockout club final against MacDonald Club which helped to win the game. He had some regret at having left BAC, but felt that the change did him good.

At the end of the 1997/98 season he returned to the farm at Selous for the winter, where he worked for his father and played winter cricket for the local team. It was now that he began to keep wicket again, although not too seriously at this stage. While there he heard that a Zimbabwe Cricket Academy was planned for 1999, and in August he applied for a place, and was accepted in the first intake.

Gwynne Jones was director, and coach as well to start with, until Shane Cloete joined the staff. Gwynne was greatly impressed by Neil, and named him as the hardest-working of all the students that year. He thought that Neil does have limited skill compared with some of the others, but he makes the most of it, concentrating intensely and playing within his limitations. "He was the most improved player, a model student," Gwynne said. "He used all his talents and tried everything." He also mentioned how, in December 1999, Neil was called in at short notice as coach of the Under-14 team to tour South Africa when Don Campbell withdrew, and that team proved to be the most successful Zimbabwean age-group team to tour South Africa since contacts with that country were renewed in 1991.

Neil enjoyed the year, revelling in the hard work despite a few teething problems in the administration. He scored quite a few eighties for the Academy team, which played against several touring teams and a number of pick-up teams for practice matches that often included national team players, mainly the batsmen. He was deeply impressed by the Australian Academy team which toured early in 1999, seeing how professional they were and how they went about their game. Brett Lee's extreme pace bowling greatly worried many of the students, and Neil says he remembers facing one ball and getting to the other side!

At the start of the 1999/2000 season the Academy had matches against Western Province and the Sri Lankan touring team, the latter in a first-class match. Neil found it fascinating then as well to have a close look at the top level and see firsthand how strong international cricket is and the standard required reach there. He opened the batting and in the second innings, on a crumbling pitch, he was eighth out for just four runs, with the total on 29! The students `recovered' to 44 all out, but this was still the lowest first-class total ever recorded on Zimbabwean soil.

During the 1999 Zimbabwean winter most of the Academy players found posts with clubs in England, Neil's being Crewe Rolls Royce, in Cheshire. He scored about 900 runs, averaging just under 40, and began keeping again seriously. He had done a bit of keeping again at the Academy, as understudy to Bruce Moore-Gordon, but now decided to take up the gloves in earnest once again. He found he made considerable improvement and began to enjoy the job again, deciding that it would be better to have two strings to his bow.

"It was quite a good experience to play on different wickets, and in the wet," said Neil. "It was also good to have responsibility on my shoulders. They hire a pro who is the main guy, and they expect him to get runs every week and to take catches and stumpings. It was nice in a way to be in charge and to know I had to do it."

The club duly returned a good report on Neil to the academy where he returned for the third term of the year. He was not invited to attend the Zimbabwe Board XI practices, but he went anyway, ambitious to be seen and to win a place in the team. He scored well in club league during the 1999/2000 season, consistently good scores but with no centuries. Playing for Harare Sports Club was a disadvantage in one respect, as their wicket-keeper was Don Campbell and Neil only got to keep when Don was playing for the Board XI. He kept his eye in at practices and worked with Campbell to improve this aspect of his game.

Neil was posted to Manicaland at the end of 1999, and soon made his mark. Manicaland were promoted to first-class status, participating in the Logan Cup for the first time that season, and celebrated with a victory over Midlands, also making their debut, at Kwekwe. Opening the batting as well as keeping wicket, Neil scored 133, a major factor in his team's success. He followed this with further centuries against Mashonaland and the Academy, and was selected for the Zimbabwe A team to tour Sri Lanka.

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 did not see it that way, though. "I really enjoyed it [Sri Lanka]," he said, "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.

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. In spite of this, though, he had a lean season in 2000/01, scoring just 114 runs in eight innings.

"I think I was trying to play too many shots too soon," Neil said in retrospect. "After my first year maybe I thought it was too easy, instead of spending time at the crease and working hard over an innings." He thinks the turning point came on a Country Districts tour to Potchefstroom in South Africa, a one-day tournament but he set his mind to occupy the crease in each match over the five days.

Mutare Sports Club won the national league in 2001/02, despite having what Neil knew was not a strong team and the batting would rely heavily on him. "I knew I had to keep batting and not play shots that I do not have in my repertoire," he said. His highest score was 95 not out as Mutare beat Takashinga in the semi-final of the knockout competition.

The result was a better than ever Logan Cup season, with three centuries: 106 against the Academy, 135 against Mashonaland A (the first time he had batted throughout a day's play) and finally his first double-century, 210 against Matabeleland. Unfortunately his team lacked bowling strength and none of these matches were won. His lowest match total in the five-match programme was 63. In addition he was keeping wicket and captaining the side, as Mark Burmester had handed over the reins to him towards the end of the previous season.

He does not find captaincy interferes with his game, but says, "I've had enough of trying to organize things off the field, and I probably not too good a manager - I get irritated. But when I'm on the field and playing, it doesn't interfere too much."

Neil played for Halifax in Yorkshire during the English season of 2001, but without much success. "The pitches were always wet and I never felt I was in," he said. "You could be on 80 and still having to work hard. My keeping came on quite a bit; standing up to the stumps all the time on those pitches did me good." He plans to play again in England during 2002, in the Cheshire league.

Looking forward to next season, he says, "If I'm not in the A side I'll be pretty disappointed. It's up to the selectors; I've got to keep making scores, but I think I've made enough at least to get another chance. I did feel that when I had a chance I didn't let myself down, but obviously other people thought I did. I just hope I can get in the A side and get some runs there, and then who knows? Hopefully Test cricket sometime." He still has some critics who say he makes his big scores against weak attacks, and want to see him succeed against Test match bowlers.

He has thought of moving to Harare next season to try to keep himself more firmly in the minds of the selectors, but would prefer to keep playing for Manicaland. An ideal situation for him would be to live and play his club cricket in Harare, but continue to represent Manicaland in the Logan Cup.

Neil prefers to open the batting when he can, although he realizes that for a wicket-keeper this rarely works in the longer version of the game, although he finds it an advantage in one-day cricket to go in to bat after a spell behind the stumps with his eye still in and his concentration still strong. He finds it much easier to pick up the line of the ball in this situation. He realizes his limitations, as he is not a dashing strokemaker, but looks to work the ball away for singles, especially to leg. He looks to play straight and get runs through driving where possible, and is working on improving the cut short, which he eliminated from his repertoire for a time. Now he realizes he needs to be able to use it, and plans to work on perfecting it.

Neil is looking forward to the coming Logan Cup season, for which he has been posted to Manicaland, a new area of the country for him. He will be based there for the next two years, where he will also coach. He is hoping for more club cricket in England during 2000, and is in contact with Worcester Norton Tenants at present.

Since leaving school, he has found the most encouragement and inspiration from his friends at the Academy, such players as Doug Marillier and Mark Vermeulen. In a way they are rivals as they strive to climb the ladder, but the spirit of encouragement is good, Neil says. He still receives great support from his family. Andy and Grant Flower have also given him much help, and he looks up to them as hard workers at their own games, role models and true professionals.

Thinking of the best bowlers he has faced so far in his career, Neil mentions the pace of Alex Tudor when they met in the matches against England Under-19, and in Zimbabwe Heath Streak. He rates Grant Flower highly as a good thinking bowler, but names Muttiah Muralitharan in a class of his own. He does not find his top-spinner too difficult to read, but his sharply turning off-breaks caused serious problems.

In the long term, Neil has his sights firmly set on the Test team - at least 30 Tests, he thinks, and as many one-day matches as possible. "It's all a mind game," he says. "I hope I can keep my mind right and keep improving - keep practising hard."