Packer understood the game and selected Wessels as a reliable opener for his brainchild series in the late '70s. Alas, when apartheid started in South Africa, he had little hope of playing for his home country and was signed by Kerry Packer to play World Series’ Cricket in Australia. He comfortably rose through the ranks in domestic cricket, playing his maiden first-class game at 16 and his first English county game at the age of 18, as a classical opener who could face the new ball and play it out. In a school tournament, against the Free State U-13s, he averaged a jaw-dropping 260 as a 9-year-old for Grey College. As he simultaneously played cricket, Wessels was found to be a precocious little prodigy. However, he struggled to beat senior players which damaged his confidence and he subsequently decided on one sport to focus on - cricket. In his mid-teens, he focussed on tennis and went on to become the top-ranked U-16 player in the country. A natural athlete, Wessels tried his hand at swimming only to discover that he had nephritis after a near-fatal incident. A turbulent journey in search of destiny He first picked up a cricket bat when he was six, and learned the basics from his sister’s boyfriend, who later went on to become a well-known coach at a college in Bloemfontein. Having grown up during a turbulent time in South Africa, and being the first Afrikaans person to pursue cricket as opposed to rugby, Wessels was always the man who didn’t belong. 'Guys bouncing the s**t out of you, telling you that you didn't belong – that fueled the passion inside,’ Being the outcast is never easy, but as the fable goes, it’s always the deaf frog that wins.
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