Pierre de Bruyn (born 31 March 1977) is a South African former

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er. Having made his debut in

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

in the 1995–96 South African cricket season, de Bruyn proceeded to play first-class,

List A List A cricket is a classification of the Limited overs cricket, limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competit ...

and Twenty20 cricket for several teams as an all-rounder and occasional

wicket-keeper In cricket, the wicket-keeper is the Cricket player, player on the fielding (cricket), fielding side who stands behind the wicket, ready to stop Delivery (cricket), deliveries that pass the batsman, and take a Caught, catch, Stumped, stump the ...

until his retirement during the 2009–10 South African cricket season. Following his retirement, he moved into coaching. He was appointed the head coach of English county side

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

in 2016, before resigning the following year. In December 2018, he was appointed as the head coach of the Namibia national cricket team.

Early life and cricket career

de Bruyn was born at

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

, where he was educated at Zwartkop High School. He made his debut in

for Northern Transvaal B against Transvaal B in the 1995–96 UCB Bowl at the Wanderers. He scored his maiden first-class

century A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. ...

in 1997, batting alongside his twin-brother

Ettiene de Bruyn Ettienne de Bruyn (born 31 March 1977) was a South African cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cric ...

for Northerns B. They shared a stand of 88 in Northerns first-innings, with de Bruyn making 103. He played solely first-class cricket up to 2000, before making his debut in List A one-day cricket for Easterns against a touring England XI. He played cricket in England in 2003, appearing for

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

in a one-day match in the 1st round of the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy against

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

. He played first-class and one-day cricket for the

Titans In Greek mythology, the Titans ( ; ) were the pre-Twelve Olympians, Olympian gods. According to the ''Theogony'' of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). The six male ...

franchise between 2005 and 2007, as well as making his Twenty20 debut for the franchise against the Lions in the 2004–05 Standard Bank Pro20 Series. He later moved franchises to the

Dolphins A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...

for the 2007–08 season having been released from his contract with the Titans, moving along with Alfonso Thomas. He played all three formats for the Dolphins until the 2009–10 season, as well as appearing in first-class and one-day cricket for KwaZulu-Natal Inland in the 2008–09 and 2009–10 seasons. He retired from playing during the 2009–10 season, having been released from his contract by the Dolphins before the conclusion of the season. He played a total of 91 first-class matches, scoring 4,637 runs at an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

of 37.09, while with his right-arm fast-medium bowling he took 108 wickets at 29.85 apiece. In one-day cricket he played 108 matches, scoring 1,791 runs at an average of 29.85 and a high score of 111 not out, while with the ball he took 60 wickets at 38.11 apiece. Uniquely in Twenty20 matches, de Bruyn played three roles as a batsman, bowler and

in the same match.

Coaching career

Following his retirement, he moved into coaching, taking up the post of director of cricket at the

University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria (, ) is a multi-campus public university, public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and ''de facto'' capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johan ...

. He replaced Andrew McDonald as head coach of

in August 2016, having worked with the county as the Second XI and Assistant Skills Coach since the winter of 2015. With Leicestershire bottom of the County Championship in 2017 and with unresolvable dressing room tensions, de Bruyn quit as head coach with immediate effect in September 2017, with Graeme Welch and John Sadler replacing him in the interim. In December 2018, he was appointed as head coach of the Namibia national cricket team, replacing Dee Thakur. He took up the post in January 2019. His first engagement was the 2019 ICC World Cricket League Division Two tournament in April 2019. Namibia finished 4th in the tournament after a loss to The Netherlands, but it was enough to qualify for their first-ever ICC T20 World Cup and first ICC tournament since the 2003 ICC ODI World Cup. De Bruyn was head coach of Namibia when they won their first-ever match at an ICC World Cup when they beat The Netherlands by 6 wickets at the 2021 ICC T20 World Cup in Abu Dhabi on 20 October 2021.

References

External links

Pierre de Bruyn
at

ESPNcricinfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:de Bruyn, Pierre 1977 births Living people Cricketers from Pretoria South African cricketers Northerns cricketers Easterns cricketers Norfolk cricketers South African expatriate cricketers in England Titans cricketers Dolphins (South African cricket team) players 21st-century South African sportsmen KwaZulu-Natal cricketers South African twins South African cricket coaches Wicket-keepers