Piet Rinke (From York Press)

Piet Rinke

8:15am Wednesday 23rd July 2008 in

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PIET Rinke may have swapped Zimbabwe for North Yorkshire but he hasn’t given up hope of playing international cricket again, as he tells STEVE CARROLL.


DOWN the wicket he is waiting. All fire and brimstone, Fidel Edwards charges forward. Accelerating as he reaches the square, 20,000 voices in the Antigua Recreation Ground roar ever louder.

At the stumps, Piet Rinke is watching – waiting for the moment the ball fires out of Edwards’ hands and flies towards him at something approaching 90mph.

The noise is intimidating. And Zimbabwe cricketer Rinke reacts.

“My knees never stopped shaking,” he said. “It was the first one-day international with the West Indies in 2006 and Edwards was bowling the first ball. He came running in and I had to pull away because the crowd was making so much noise.

“You physically couldn’t concentrate on what you had to do. It was absolutely amazing. I didn’t score any runs but as an experience it was fantastic. It picks you up, picks your levels up and your concentration.”

Welcome to international cricket, Piet.

Norton in North Yorkshire is about as far away from the Caribbean as you can get but it is home to Rinke who, having married locally, is currently playing for Scarborough in the Oxbridge Yorkshire ECB County Premier League.

Playing 18 one-day internationals for Zimbabwe, and touring the West Indies, is the highlight of Rinke’s cricketing career to date, but the 26-year-old all-rounder isn’t simply satisfied with domesticity in North Yorkshire.

He desperately wants to showcase his talents on the big stage once more.

Rinke added: “The Yorkshire League is the strongest club league I have played in. It’s a very competitive standard but I am looking to get back into first-class cricket.

“As soon as an opportunity comes I will grab it with both hands. All I can do is pitch up on a Saturday and do the best I can. If you get your stats, you might be able to take an opportunity.

“I haven’t done as much (internationally) as I’d like to. I ended up playing 18 one-day internationals. It was a fantastic experience, the highlight of which was the Caribbean tour of 2006.

“In the one-dayers I didn’t do all that well but I managed to make a bit of a name for myself in the warm-up matches where I got a couple of hundreds.

“We were touring a place where everyone speaks cricket. They just love their cricket. It doesn’t matter how old or young. It was a fantastic experience to tour somewhere where everyone knows who you are and what you are there for.

“I was opening the batting at the time. I bowled quite a bit but a couple of the openers got injured and, just before I started playing for the national side, I had a real good run of form in the first-class arena.

“They (selectors) said, ‘here’s an opportunity, go out and hit the ball,’ and I ended up doing that. On my first tour I was averaging 40-odd against Kenya. It went really well.

“I was basically a pinch-hitter. Being given a licence to do that worked really well. My highest one-day score was 72 and I got that twice. The first helped square the series with Kenya. We were 2-1 down coming into that game. The second was against Canada in a triangular tournament in the Caribbean.

“It went well and we ended up winning that. I got us off to a really good start. Now it’s out of my hands. I got injured soon after the ICC Champions Trophy in India in 2006.

“I picked up a bit of a knee niggle and I just wasn’t able to shake it off. My confidence dropped and I went through a slump in form just before the World Cup in 2007. I didn’t get in the side, went to play at a club in Norfolk and got married at the end of the year.”

That’s seen him land at North Marine Drive where he is making his mark in Yorkshire’s top division. Last Saturday, he took 4-27 for Scarborough, ripping through the Doncaster order before rain stopped play.

While the political situation in Zimbabwe makes any decision about returning to the international arena a difficult one, Rinke’s intentions are clear.

“We don’t know what’s happening in Zimbabwe with the current situation,” he said.

“It’s really difficult to say what you would do but I don’t know anyone who would throw away the opportunity of playing internationally. Given the right circumstances, I would definitely consider playing again. I want to play the highest standard I can.”

For now, that means Scarborough for the former Matabeleland and Zimbabwe Cricket Academy product. But there’s every chance the future looks much brighter.