Transvaal loan Hearle to Boland (19 Sep 1997)

19 September 1997

Transvaal loan Hearle to Boland

by Guy Hawthorne

Transvaal's Philip Hearle, a former SA Schools captain and skipper of the SA under 19 side that took on their Pakistani counterparts last season, will play for Boland this season as part of the recently-introduced player loan scheme.

A bright future has been predicted for the left-handed opening batsman, who spent the SA winter playing at the Wanderers Cricket Club in Barbados.

Transvaal director of coaching Ray Jennings was at pains to point out that his province was not "getting rid of one of its more promising players".

"One of the reasons we decided to allow him to go to Boland as part of the loan scheme is his undaunting loyalty to Transvaal", said Jennings. "At the end of the day, his stint at Boland will be to the benefit of Transvaal. He's immensely talented and I'm confident he'll come back to us a better player for the experience. Philip is one of many players at Transvaal that have come out of our School of Excellence, which is run by Andrew Kramer. He could have stayed at home and batted for a spot in the first team at Transvaal. But we feel he has a better chance of making it at Boland and regular cricket at the top level will be good for him."

Hearle (19) admitted he would probably have struggled to hold down a place in the Transvaal team, who will be without opener Adam Bacher (on national duty) for much of the season but will be able to call on new acquisitions Sven Koenig (from WP) and Andre Seymore (from Northerns) and the vastly-improved Hussein Manack.

Source: The Star