‘Excited, nervous and have all these emotions popping up’- JP Duminy on Boland coaching gig
Having grown up in Cape Town, Duminy spent his entire playing career in the Western Cape and has both an understanding of the cricketing landscape in this area and a good rapport with many of the players, which was one of the reasons Boland appointed him. “One of his biggest strengths is man-management. People like him,” James Fortuin, CEO of Boland Cricket told ESPNcricinfo. “He has a huge amount of experience and brings a lot to the role.”
Without applying too much pressure on Duminy, Fortuin hoped the team could build on a strong first season, in which they won the T20 competition, finished seventh in the one-day cup and fifth in the first-class competition to be placed third on the combined results chart. Having only been elevated to the top tier last summer, at the dissolution of the franchise system, Boland’s results were “better than expected,” according to Fortuin and they’ve put the systems in place to build on that.
“The people in Boland mean a lot to me and hopefully this is an opportunity for us to get out into the community and get the team closer to the community once again and represent the people,” he said. “I want to be a big part of that and get the players to understand what it means to represent the community. That’s a big part of Boland and it extends far and wide beyond Paarl. That’s a big thing for me.”
Duminy joins Robin Peterson at the Warriors and Imran Khan at the Dolphins as former international players coaching in the top division.