CONRAD SUTCLIFFE REPORTING
BOVEY Tracey have lined-up three overseas players for their 2024 campaigns in the Tolchards Devon Cricket League – one of them a lady cricketer with an impressive track record.
The first-team’s Premier Division squad has been strengthened by the signing of 23-year-old South African keeper-batsman Musa Twala.
Twala’s cricketing CV includes South Africa Emerging Players, Northerns Titans, Easterns, Easterns Colts, Titans Academy.
Twala currently turns-out for the star-studded Titans Franchise, who play in the top tier of South African professional cricket.
Back in 2021 Twala showed glimpses of this undoubted potential by scoring 124 from 245 balls for Easterns against Limpopo in a CSA 4-Day (Division Two) match.
Twala spent his junior career with Easterns, going through their pathway system, before earning a cricket scholarship to St Alban’s College in Pretoria.
Toby Codd, who will be embarking on his second stint as 1st XI captain, believes Twala is the right fit for Bovey Tracey.
“Musa matched all our criteria for an overseas for this season,” said Codd.
“He looks a really talented player who can offer so much on and off the pitch.
“They seem to rate him highly in South Africa so we're very excited to see what he can do for us.”
Bovey won’t be short of keeper-batters this summer as former captain Lewis Hammett is still there and ex-Chudleigh skipper Adam Kent has made the short trip from Kate Brook to the Recreation Ground.
Kent, who arrived at Chudleigh from Abbotskerswell in 2021, scored more than 1,100 league runs at an average a fraction under 30, which included seven half centuries and an unbeaten ton against Bideford last season.
“It is great to get Adam on board,” said Codd. “He will add a lot to the club and is a hungry cricketer.”
Bovey Tracey 2nd XI, who play in the DCL B Division, will have 6ft 2ins seamer Braydon Pink in their bowling armoury this summer.
Pink knows all about UK cricket having played for Ripley in the Surrey Cricket League last year, for whom he averaged more than 35 with the bat and took 31 wickets. He toured the UK and Holland in 2017 as a member of Kent Street Senior High School.
Pink possesses a UK ancestry visa, a first-aid certificate and holds level one coaching and umpiring qualifications. His home club is University CC in the WACA Premier Cricket in Perth.
Bovey Tracey have had overseas players in their second team for several years, but have not brought anyone over to play in the third team… until now.
Step forward Monica Gair, a lively seam bowler who has more than 250 wickets to her credit already – and she is barely 21.
Gair, who has a Scottish heritage, toured this county with the Lyon Cricket Academy in 2023 and is aiming to progress to the international women’s game.
She currently plays men’s Third Grade cricket for Weston Creek CC in Canberra. Previously she turned out for Northern Districts CC in Sydney. Gair is a member of the Australian Capital Territories Meteors Development Squad and a level two coach.
Although women cricketers are quite a common sight in the Tolchards DCL, hardly any have travelled 12,000 miles to join a club. And none have ever been recruited purely as a player.
The only previous women cricketer from overseas found in the notoriously inaccurate DCL records is Australian Laura Johnston, who played for Cornwood in 2019 and 2020. She never went home and is now married to Cornwood’s current 2nd XI captain Robin Dart.
