Steinhoff Maties Cricket player Kyle Simmonds has been invited to join the Cricket South Africa National Academy.

The programme starts on 22 May and will run until the end of July. Thereafter the SA Emerging Men's squad will be named for the tour of Sri Lanka in August.

Kyle has had an excellent season thus far, reaching 50 first class wickets in only 11 games.

According to this second-year Matie, it was his goal to join the National Academy one day.

"After my two years at the Dolphins Academy (2013-2014) I did have plans to hopefully attend the National Academy one day but I did not expect an invitation at the beginning of the 2016/2017 cricket season. I was fortunate to have had a good start to the season and am very grateful about this selection. A few of my teammates at Boland have been through the Academy so it's been good to hear what will be expected. I'm looking forward to the challenge ahead."

For Simmonds a big motivation is the fact that many players who joined the National Academy in previous years have moved on to franchise cricket.

"This is something that will drive me to grow as a cricketer while at the academy. In terms of my career, I do not want to look too far ahead but rather focus on any opportunity that comes along. I'm taking it one game at a time."

The National Academy programme is aimed at looking at the holistic development of a player. It looks at all aspects – not just at cricket-related skills and tactical awareness, but also at what other support a player needs in order to get to a level where he or she can perform at professional and international standards. This includes the performance lifestyle of a player, his social background, his economic background and how these aspects affect the player's ability to perform at the top level.

Simmonds will use his time at the Academy wisely. "Something I learned very quickly is that you can't just rely on one aspect of cricket, like bowling for example. At the Academy my main focus will be bowling but I am going to work hard on the three other important aspects of cricket: batting, fielding and fitness. I think if you're competing with the top players in all four categories you make it very hard for selectors to leave you out of any team."