By NATASHA HARRIS and AIDEN TAIPETI
As a 5-year-old, Rosamond Kember would spend her summer days playing cricket with her male cousins in the backyard.
Not content to just be the wicketkeeper, she would take to the bat and ball with a vengeance, surprising her cousins and her dad, Gerald Kember, with
her skill.
Mr Kember, a former All Black and age-level cricketer, recalls how enthusiastic Ros was the first time she played and how her cousins were gobsmacked by how good she was.
Soon Ros joined the Parnell Cricket Club and now she's a star with the bat.
The 18-year-old is in Auckland's top women's team, the Hearts. She is one of only four women in this year's intake at the New Zealand Cricket Academy in Christchurch and has been labelled Auckland's most promising young woman cricketer.
She has yet to make her first century, but scored 83 not out for St Albans in Christchurch.
Her goal this season is to make the New Zealand A team and - maybe - the White Ferns.
A former Remuera resident, Ros says she is looking forward to moving to Freemans Bay next year and hopes to study architecture at Unitec or Auckland University. This year she has been studying landscape architecture at Lincoln.
Of her many successes, Ros said the biggest were making the Hearts last season and getting into the Cricket Academy this year. Other achievements include making Auckland A, the second-best women's team in Auckland, when she was 17.
"I like succeeding in the challenges that are presented to me - I like the challenges I get in cricket."
The programme at the academy is rigorous. Honing her skill on the pitch takes up a lot of her time. "This year I have been practising five to six days a week. It has been intense."
Despite the intensity she hasn't had any really serious injuries while playing.
Auckland Hearts coach Sarah Beaman, who has also coached Ros in various premier teams for four years, says: "She's probably one of the technically nicest-looking batsmen in women's cricket to be around for a long time.
"Being at the academy she's really grown and she's shown that she's got the goods ... She's just got a huge talent and I look forward to seeing her named in the New Zealand team one day."
Mr Kember, who jokingly said his daughter got her hand-eye co-ordination from him, also says Ros has an extremely good batting technique.
He puts his daughter's skills down to constantly playing cricket against boys, when she was forced to play against mixed-sex teams at primary school.
"Her and one of her girlfriends played cricket for years with boys and I think it helped them to play more athletically, as otherwise they couldn't participate."
By NATASHA HARRIS and AIDEN TAIPETI
As a 5-year-old, Rosamond Kember would spend her summer days playing cricket with her male cousins in the backyard.
Not content to just be the wicketkeeper, she would take to the bat and ball with a vengeance, surprising her cousins and her dad, Gerald Kember, with
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