Teenage cricket star, Matt Gilkes, won’t let his young age stand in the way of his cricketing career.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Ulladulla United under 16s skipper impressed everyone in the cricketing community last year taking a hat-trick and a century for his local team in one game, but this wasn’t the only impressive cricketing achievement for Matt recently.
After playing for the New South Wales country team for the past couple of years, and seeing the team become Australian champions two years in a row, Matt took the next step.
This time, he played in green and gold for Australia with the Australian schoolboys under 16s team in Sri Lanka. In tough, hot conditions that tested his physical and mental strengths, he was the highest run scorer on the tour.
Matt’s success continued this year, when he was drafted to the Western District and University of Canberra Cricket Club’s first grade team, making his debut in early February.
His stand-in skipper, Joe Cooke, was reported as saying Matt was one of the most exciting prospects he had seen in the ACT competition.
“He’s got the application, got the temperament and got the skill to be as good as he wants,” Cooke said.
With an impressive score of 97 in his first grade debut for the Wests/UCs, and an equally impressive follow up of 80 against Eastlake, the unbeaten leaders of the Douglas Cup ladder, Matt has put the skills he has been building up in high level competition over the past couple of years to excellent use.
While he may have thought that he would be eased into his first grade team, Wests/UC had other plans, throwing him into the deep end and keeping him in his regular spot as opener.
While this might have made some players nervous, after everything Matt has achieved in the sport of cricket, it hardly seems surprising that this didn’t phase him one bit.
“One thing I like about opening, is that I don’t have time to sit there and get nervous,” Matt explained.