Reeza Hendricks - South Africa - Batsman

Hendricks, a right-handed batsman who started his career at Griqualand West and went on to play for Knights. He was part of the team that traveled to Malaysia to participate in the U-19 World Cup in 2008. Though he has a moderate first class average, Hendricks is better known for his short format skills.

A good season for the Knights saw Hendricks being called up for the T20I squad for the tour of Australia in 2014. In his debut game, he got a duck, but was given a longer run. He scored a couple of 40s - one against Australia and the other versus West Indies, both were not convincing. Hence he couldn't find a place when the team went to Bangladesh.

Consistent performances for Lions and Griqualand West saw him break into the One-Day side in 2018. Hendricks joined an elite list of players to score a hundred on debut, his knock came against Sri Lanka at Pallekele. Having been given the opener's position during mid-2018, Hendricks was rather inconsistent in the build-up to the 2019 World Cup and the domination of Aiden Markram in List A format saw him miss out on the 15-man squad.

Hendricks still held his place in South Africa's T20 side - a format which he is more comfortable with. He was third highest run-getter for Jozi Stars when they won the inaugural Mzansi Super League and found himself in South Africa’s squad for the 2021 T20 World Cup. While Hendricks faltered in that tournament, scoring only 56 runs from 4 outings, he hit a rich vein of form leading up to the 2022 T20 World Cup. Despite this however, Rilee Rossouw, who had incidentally been in even better form, played ahead of Hendricks and he didn’t get a single game despite being in the squad.

After being in and out of the setup several times, Hendricks made South Africa’s 15-man squad for the 2023 Cricket World Cup.

By Akshay Maanay