Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

Three Western Bay of Plenty Cricket age-group graduates are playing on the big stage at the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, currently under way on the East coast of Australia.

Black Caps superstars Kane Williamson and Trent Boult need no introduction to Kiwi cricket fans. The third Western Bay player is a young man who has come a long way in cricket in a short time.

Tim Pringle, who has only recently turned twenty years of age is playing for the country of his birth, the Netherlands, at the T20 pinnacle event.

Pringle made his Bay of Plenty representative debut against Northland in November 2017, aged 15 years and 92 days, some 19 days younger than Kane Williamson on debut.

There was plenty of local interest in where cricket would take Pringle, as he joined the illustrious company of Williamson, Mathew Hart and Daniel Flynn, in making his Bay debut before his 16th birthday.

The youngster made an immediate impact, grabbing 15 wickets in the 2017/18 ND representative season, to sit third behind Jono Boult (23) and Sean Davey (22).

The 2019/20 season, saw Pringle's 15 wickets enough to take out the top honours in the Bay representative bowling stakes, repeating the same numbers the following season. In 2021, he wrote his name in the BOPCA Honours list for the first time, taking six wickets at a cost of 48 runs, against ND heavyweight Hamilton.

At the start of this year, few could have imagined the giant steps TJG Pringle would take in his cricket career, in a short time. Pringle's rapid rise began with the Bay of Plenty side with another top season bowling his slow left-arm orthodox deliveries.

The March 2022 Bay game, against Counties Manukau, propelled Pringle to join a unique all-time list of Bay of Plenty representative bowlers who have taken ten wickets (or better) in a match. Eight wickets for 71 runs in Hamilton's first turn at bat, was followed by 4/48 in their second dig. This was just the 15th time in 90 years of Bay of Plenty representative cricket that the feat has been achieved.

A late-season call to play for a New Zealand A selection against the Netherlands, gave a small hint that Pringle could be wearing the orange strip of his birth country, less than six months later.

A New Zealand winter sojourn to play club cricket in Holland paid dividends, with his impressive club form seeing him selected to represent the Netherlands, in ODI action.

As of the Men's T20 World Cup against Bangladesh on Monday (24th October 2022), Tim Pringle has played 11 T20I and 4 ODI matches, posting 47 runs and taking 8 wickets.

To add to the successes of the last twelve months, Tim has earned a Northern Districts professional contract for the upcoming New Zealand Cricket domestic season.

It would be interesting to gaze into a crystal ball of the future to see where cricket takes TJG Pringle in the coming years. The (cricket) world is his oyster and with dedication and commitment, he could become as well known to cricket fans, as Kane Williamson and Trent Boult.