Player Profile: Armaan and Morteza Manack (St David’s Marist Inanda)
It was a spectacle. Spectators watched Ragheeba Manack as she ran from the embankment onto the field. When he saw his wife running, Yasin Manack abandoned his fielding position to head towards her. Husband and wife were headed in the same direction, but not to each other. Their target was the twins, Armaan and Morteza Manack.
That incident wasn’t a one-off thing. It happened every weekend from the time they could walk. The lush outfield was a magnet for small creatures, from frogs to grasshoppers. They fascinated the toddling twins, who rushed onto the outfield whenever they saw something.
“I don’t think they had a choice. We are a cricket-loving family, and the boys grew up surrounded by bats and cricket balls,” Yasin shared.
Yasin comes from a cricketing family. His father played first-class cricket until he was 41. Like his siblings, Yasin grew up playing club cricket, and he is a qualified Level 3 coach. His wife played action cricket for many years. In fact, they met at an action cricket match.
There was no escaping the game for Armaan and Morteza because when they visited their cousins, they walked into another version of their home. Their uncle is Hussein Manack, the well-known cricket coach, broadcaster, and former Cricket South Africa selector.
However, while their environment pushed them towards cricket, they embraced it on their own terms, and from the day they first invaded the pitch as a duo, they’ve never wanted to leave it.
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It was not enough for Armaan and Morteza that they were born in the same hour and invaded the field on the same day, they also recorded their first-ever centuries in the same innings. In only their second game at u9 level, the twins, aged eight, shared a 230-run opening partnership.
Their outstanding opening partnership was a result of the twins possessing an advanced ability that was far beyond the norm for their age group. They have always played up, taking on old boys. Armaan and Morteza played their first semi-organised match when they were only four years old. It was at Marks Park Cricket Club, on the same field they invaded as toddlers. However, this time, because it was an u7 match, there were no pitch or boundary markers.
“There were no fours and sixes and I had to run to get all my runs. It was loads of fun and some of my best memories,” Morteza recalled.
The other reason for their impressive opening stand was the twins’ competitive nature. They push each other to be better. Armaan and Morteza have been competing from the time they could hold a bat and throw a ball.
“Whenever I compete with my brothers in anything, it’s fierce, and cricket is no exception. We both have that drive to win, so our games are often intense and highly competitive. It’s not unusual for things to get heated. This sibling rivalry has made me a stronger player, as I constantly strive to improve,” Armaan explained.
Thus, in addition to working together, there has always been an element of competition in their partnership.
“My brother and I have always competed with each other, even to this day,” Morteza said, “but when we were younger, we used to both open the batting, so we would always try and out-score each other, even if it meant stealing the strike.”
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In the early 1990s, K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues conducted a study at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music. They divided the school’s violinists into three groups: the first group was the stars, the students with the potential to become world-class soloists; the second group included those judged to be merely good; in the third group, they had students deemed unlikely to ever play professionally, who intended to pursue careers in teaching.
Students in all three groups started playing at around the same time, at roughly the age of five. However, Ericsson and his colleagues found that while they practiced about the same amount of time, two or three hours per week when they started, things differed as they grew older. The students in the first group practiced an average of six hours a week, at eight years of age, and increased the hours as they grew older.
The students in the second group partially increased their practice hours, but not by the same volume, and the students in the third group did not increase their practice hours by much. The study informed Ericsson and his colleagues about the importance of hours invested in honing a skill. They went on to conduct numerous studies to test this finding and they found that it held true.
Their findings formed the basis of the 10 000 hours theory popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his cult classic book, Outliers. Armaan and Morteza’s uncle, Hussein, is a big believer in the theory. He insists that a cricket player can only get better when they test their skills against better players for extended periods.
“Marks Park has the lowest average age in the Lions Premier League A because we believe young players need to spend as much time in the middle honing their skills as possible. Armaan and Morteza have been part of the first XI side for the past two or three years,” Hussein revealed.
His perspective is aligned with Yasin’s. The boys’ father is wary of overcoaching his sons, so despite holding a level three certificate, he has resisted the impulse to coach them at home. However, that doesn’t mean that the Manack home is cricket-free. Rain or shine, hot or cold, the twins wake up early to face deliveries before they get on with the day’s events.
“Those boys are dedicated. I have seen them putting a ball in the microwave to thaw it in the depth of winter,” Hussein shared.
“Sometimes they come up to me and ask me to give them throwdowns at 21:00. I never push them to practice, but when they ask me to help them, I get up and do as they ask,” Yasin said.
The twins do not just work hard at home. They carry that work ethic to St David’s Marist Inanda, where Jeff Levin has only kind words to say about their commitment and dedication.
However, it’s not just the technical aspects that the twins focus on. They also work on their mental strength with Hussein’s help.
“We focus a lot on their cricket IQ. It’s not enough for them to just know how to hit balls,” he explained. “There is also their ability to deal with loss and disappointment. It is important that they learn to take a loss as a learning opportunity. Another thing is their conduct off the field. We focus on that, too.”
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“One of my most memorable matches happened just a few months ago when I played against Bishops, the top-ranked team in the country in the Fasken Time Cricket Festival. I managed to score an unbeaten 120. This knock was significant because we ended up with a nine-wicket victory,” Armaan told SuperSport Schools Plus.
“Last year, we played in a Talent ID u19 tournament. Marks Park was in the final versus Jozi Hits, who were a really strong team and had some big-name players.
“We had to chase 201 in 20 overs, and I was batting at four. I came in early after we lost two quick wickets. My brother and I put on a 107-run partnership to get us close to the target. I scored 70-odd off 39 balls and I went out when we needed eight runs. We went on to win the match and the tournament,” Morteza remembered.
The memories above are the twins’ most memorable outings. They also demonstrate the difference between the brothers.
“While they are identical twins, they bring very different personalities and play different roles within the side,” Jeff Levin, their coach at St David’s Marist Inanda, explained. He has worked with the twins for two years as part of the school’s first XI.
Yasin, Hussein, and Levin call Armaan the team’s banker. He likes to spend time at the crease and can bat for a long time. He frets about his technique and his attacking shots are all built from a strong technical base.
Morteza, on the other hand, displays more flair and likes to push the game forward. He is a modern middle-order batsman who is likely to play an attacking shot as soon as he gets to the crease. In addition, Morteza is also a useful spin bowler, especially in the powerplay.
The difference in the twins’ approaches creates a wonderful complimentary dynamic when they bat together. It can make them appear to be unstoppable.
“One stand-out moment was when they opened the batting together last year in a Johnny Waite encounter against Northcliff and were chasing 144 in 20 overs. They knocked the runs off in 12 overs,” Levin shared.
In December, the brothers will put their skills on display for the Central Gauteng Lions at the Khaya Majola Week in Cape Town.
