Giving the boys a run for their money
Despite still being eligible at an u-16 level she was called up to the provincial ladies first team at the beginning of 2019
Benoni schoolgirl, Madison Landsman, looks set to provide cricket statisticians with quite a workload in the next few years.
Although still unverified, the ambitious 15-year-old Benoni High School girls cricket captain may have scored the most runs off the least amount of balls. She clubbed 185 off just 64 deliveries for her girls’ school team in a T20 cricket fixture earlier this month against Alberton High School.
“It was just one of those games where I felt everything from the middle of the bat from the beginning. It felt like I wasn’t thinking about anything and before I knew it, it was 50-up, 100-up and so on,” said Madison.
From the moment she first started playing the game at a young age with her dad and sister in the back garden of their then Springs home she wanted to do nothing else but play cricket.
It very soon became evident that she was no ordinary schoolgirl cricketer. Having made her mark playing in both boys and girls teams the progression to a higher level was virtually a given and her leadership and ability to read the game was also acknowledged.
The Grade Nine learner shows a maturity well beyond her years.
*She has captained teams at every juncture, including the Eastern Gauteng u-13s and u-16s and the Samurai franchise team that won the ECU Battle of the Roses T20 title at Willowmoore Park.
ALSO READ: New Easterns bowling recruit going places
Despite still being eligible at an u-16 level she was called up to the provincial ladies first team at the beginning of 2019 and is now also quietly bypassing the u-16s and hopping straight to the u-19 provincial level.
From the outset, Madison has literally been ‘one of the boys’. With no official cricket programme in place for girls at that time she started playing for the boys’ first team at the age of 12 at Selcourt Primary School in Springs. She also captained that side back-to-back league honours in 2016 and 2017.
“They just laughed at me and told me the netball trails were on the other side of the school,” she recalled with a wry smile. “The first ball I bowled at trials I got their best batsman out and it became a standing school joke. But over time I grew and became one of the guys.”
Madison lists England’s wicket-keeper-batsman Joss Butler as her favourite men’s player and all-conquering Australian all-rounder Elysse Perry as her women’s cricketing role model.
She singles out mental toughness as the common denominator between herself and her two sporting heroes.
*It was previously reported that Madison Landman captained the Benoni Northerns ladies first team. This is incorrect. She does play for the the Benoni Northerns ladies first team but has not captained the team. The City Times apologies for any inconvenience caused.
