Cape Town - Former Cape Cobras and Western Province stalwart, Andrew Puttick, has been appointed as a batting consultant for the Western Province Cricket Association.

Puttick will invest his 20 years’ experience at first-class level into developing stars from Western Province who can represent South Africa.

“It was something Nabael (Dien, the chief executive officer of the Western Province Cricket Association) and I had discussed for quite some while. Ashwell (Prince, head coach of the World Sports Betting Cape Cobras) had also really encouraged me to stay involved,” he said.

Puttick retired at the end of last season after a final flurry – scoring his 78th century in his final first-class match.

“I think one needs to be observant and then flexible. Every batsman has his own methods, technique and personality. One then needs patience to build up the relationship and trust – from there my goal is to make a batsman more effective at scoring runs,” Puttick said.

“Slight technical adjustments are needed but it is more about helping batsmen with game plans, building confidence and batting smarter.

“There is a nice mix of young talented batters in the Western Province structures. They are hungry to impress and are pushing each other which is good. At Cobras level, Janneman (Malan) and Dave (Bedingham) have both passed 100 early in their Cobras careers, Zuby (Hamza) and Pieter (Malan) have been prolific at franchise level for a while now.

“Avi (Mgijima) has been brilliant in the middle order and played some great innings as has Kyle (Verreynne), who for a young guy has been very consistent and good in pressure situations. Jason Smith has great potential with both bat and ball.

“For now, my aim is to offer guidance and practical skills to the batsmen and I want to try and enhance the levels of improvement of batsmen in the structures through the levels of WP U19, Academy, WP semi-pro and the Cobras, so that there will be strength in depth and competition for places and players moving on to be successful in international cricket.”