New Zealand: Dual talents rewarded (4 November 1998)

4 November 1998

New Zealand: Dual talents rewarded

by John Coffey

Cricketers at Christ's College would probably be startled to find Jeff Vinicombe, of Nelson College, is ranked higher in another sport involving a bat and ball.

Vinicombe was largely responsible for Nelson beating Christ's, despite following-on in their match at Nelson earlier this year. The Vinicombe contributions were innings of 28 (in a total of 120) and 95 and leg-spin bowling figures of six for 75 and five for 41.

He also scored a century against his former Marlborough College schoolmates in Blenheim.

Until quite recently, Vinicombe had seemed destined to be a military medium-pacer and lower order batsman.

"About two and a half years ago, after watching people like Shane Warne bowl, I practiced leg-spin in the nets and the coach suggested I try bowling it in games. I was pretty successful and have kept it up," he said. "In the last two seasons I have also concentrated on my batting because I want to establish myself as more of an all-rounder."

Although Vinicombe, a Year 13 (Form 7) student, is keen to develop his cricketing career, his move from Blenheim to Nelson this year was prompted by his burgeoning table tennis skills. He attends the table tennis academy in Nelson, training under coach Binquan Hu for an hour after school every day. Vinicombe is currently ranked in the top four among under-17 players in New Zealand, and about 12th at under-19 level.

"When I was in form two I got knocked out playing rugby and my parents thought it would be better if I had a change of sport. Table tennis was just starting up at the (Renwick Primary) school so I thought I would try that. I found it enjoyable so have stuck with it," said Vinicombe.

Last month Vinicombe teamed up with Chan Lei, David Woo, and Adrian Soh to beat Auckland Grammar in the national secondary schools' final at North Harbour, and to win the New Zealand under-19 teams' final for Nelson against Auckland at Auckland.

Individually, Vinicombe also performed well. He reached the under-17 singles semi-finals, extending eventual champion Peter Craven (Northland), and narrowly lost the final of the under-19 doubles with Kurt Hawkins (North Harbour).

Vinicombe is in his last school year and has a physical education course at Otago University in his sights, though not necessarily starting in 1999. His table tennis ambitions are somewhat clearer.

"I would like to represent New Zealand at the world championships," he said.

First, though, he must advance through the age-grades and improve his ranking about six places if he is to get in the under-20s team to go to Australia next year.

The growing Asian influence in New Zealand table tennis increases the challenge.

"They tend to dominate the sport. When they come out they are already of a reasonably good standard and take out most titles."

Maybe Vinicombe, a young man with a bat and ball in his hands the year round, could perplex the opposition by developing a table tennis equivalent of Warne's flipper.

Source :: The Christchurch Press (https://www.press.co.nz/)