Abrahams will be explosive acquisition
BORDER cricket’s first signing from outside of the Eastern Cape, Gerhardt Abrahams, is aiming to make a big splash this season in all formats for his new team.
The 27-year-old opening batsman arrives from Kimberley, where he represented Northerns cricket as well as the Knights so far in his career, and he will now be looking to establish himself at Border.
“I am very happy to be here. It is something we spoke about two years ago but it unfortunately didn’t work out then so I am excited to be here now,” said Abrahams.
“I was in a bad space mentally for a yearand-a-half and I felt that I needed a change in order for my career to move forward.
“I spoke to a few of my mates here about the set-up and mentality here and I heard it was a very happy camp and that is something I wanted to be a part of, because I feel like cricket is more of a mental thing than anything else. So you want to be in a good mental space when you play and I feel like this is probably the best place where I can achieve that in order to do well.”
Border coach Frank Plaatjes is also very happy with the signing of Abrahams and is expecting big things from the top order batsman and occasional wicket-keeper.
“The acquisition of Gerhardt Abrahams is fantastic for us. I saw him score a hundred here for the Knights against the Warriors and he will be a quality addition to the team,” said Plaatjes.
“He is an explosive batsman upfront and I am expecting big things from him over the season. “It is the first time that Border has given a contract to someone from outside of the Eastern Cape, which is a massive step for us and is very exciting.”
Abrahams has not set himself any concrete goals for this season with Border but is aiming to do as well as he can and contribute as many runs as possible at the top of the order.
“I had a chat to the coach when I arrived and I said that I am not setting myself standard goals in that I want to score 500 runs in the one-day competition or a thousand runs in the three-day cup. I said I want to come here and score as much runs as possible for this team,” said Abrahams.
“So my goal is to take every game as it comes and try and score as many runs as I can.”
A bigger goal for Abrahams is, however, to force his way back into the franchise set-up, with his eyes firmly set on representing the Warriors over the coming cricket season.
“The mind-set is to be here, do well for Border and hopefully be here for a long time, but if I came here to simply play semipro cricket then the move is pointless,” said Abrahams.
“The move is with the mind-set that by the end of the season I want to have played if not in all of the competitions for the Warriors then at least in one or two of them.
“I would like to be a part of that set-up by the end of the season because I feel that it is important to play at the highest possible level that you can, and that is what I want to achieve.”
Abrahams will be in action for Border when the three-day season gets under way against Northerns at SuperSport Park in Centurion on October 12, and he will be hoping to make an immediate impact and take that momentum into the rest of the season.