Pearson cricket aims even higher
Pearson High School staked its claim to being one of the leading cricketing schools in South Africa in 2025 when both their girls’ and boys’ teams qualified for Phase 2 of Schools SA20 in January.
The Gqeberha school is focused on building on those foundations in its bid to be a national powerhouse. An important and massive step in that quest was taken in August with the completion of a state-of-the-art High-Performance Centre.
The facility has six specialised cricket turfs catering for various batting and bowling conditions and it features PitchVision equipment, which will allow for detailed analysis and statistics on each player’s batting and bowling technique.
The technology allows coaches and players access to, among others, bowling speeds, pitch maps, impact points, and degrees of turn and variation in bowling styles.
Building a state-of-the-art centre was, however, only one half of Pearson’s strategy to boost their cricket programme. The other part was the appointment of Rudi Second as the Head of Cricket and first team coach.
Second hung up his bat and gloves last year after a solid professional playing career spanning 13 years, during which he was capped 140 times at first-class level, during which he scored 9 021 runs at an average of 43.4. A renowned wicketkeeper, he also pulled off 416 catches behind the stumps and executed 15 stumpings.
Second represented the Free State Knights, captained the Dafabet Warriors, and a regular in the South Africa A team. He was also selected for the South African Test and spent six seasons in England playing county cricket.
“I’ve come in to try to continue what they’re doing, and luckily enough, they have set up a big indoor centre, which has increased our contact time with the players, allowing us to work on the days when it’s raining, and a little bit later into the evenings and the winter. So that’s been a great addition, and it’s really helped us to upskill the players,” Second told SuperSport Schools Plus.
He said his primary focus will be on utilising what he’s learned as a professional cricketer to help Pearson to establish a competitive edge over their opposition.
“Just add one or two things that I’ve learned over my career, and just to unlock it in the players, because I believe all the players have it in their makeup, and it’s a good coach who unlocks that,” he explained.
The coach praised the hard work put in by Charl van der Merwe, his predecessor, and said that it had laid the foundation for his work.
“We have a goal of being one of the strongest cricketing schools in the country. Our first team showed that last season by getting to the Schools SA20 final round. So, there’s a very strong place for cricketers at the school, and that’s something that I want to continue,” he elaborated.
Second said that one of the things that attracted him to Pearson was that its cricketing programme is not just earmarked for the boys. The school is also intent on becoming the top girls’ cricketing school in the nation.
“We’ve got a strong girls’ programme, as well, and it shows with the number of good girls’ cricketers coming through,” he said.
However, Second remains cognisant of the fact that Pearson is an educational institution, not a cricket academy. Therefore, his goal isn’t limited to helping the school produce outstanding cricketers, but he also aims to help it turn out good, well-rounded people.
“It’s an education establishment at the end of the day, and there’s a lot of focus on integrity and being empathetic to the kids. We can use sport to grow really good individuals, and that is what we want to do,” he said.
Second pointed out that part of that focus includes him encouraging the players under his guidance to not only excel at cricket but also in academics and in other sports available at the school.
“It’s a really great all-round school,” he enthused, “and it shows in the quality of the people that are coming out of it.”
