Gwong Long joins FHK Coaching Staff!
The former ZCC and Dynamo Morpork middle-order batsman has joined FHK today in his new role of batting coach.
This is the first coaching stint for the 32 year old, whose playing career spanned 17 seasons and 539 matches across all formats.
The bulk of his career came at ZCC, where he played 303 competitive league matches, scoring 8209 runs at an average of 34.93 and a SR of 122.87, with 43 fifties and 10 hundreds. His run tally is the third highest in ZCC history, and he also managed to take 250 wickets with his part-time offbreaks. He made his Dev cricket debut with ZCC back in Season 11, and played his final league game for the club in Season 25, signing off with a 123(91) and 1/17 in a SA Div 1.1 encounter. Since then he has enjoyed two fruitful seasons with Dynamo Morpork, parting ways with the club on his 32nd birthday. His 2nd last appearance was against FHK in the CCCT20 friendly comp, where he scored 28 off 19 and took 1/4 in a losing cause.
Born in Hong Kong as Jaspreet Mann, Gwong Long changed his name on his 18th birthday as a nod to his Cantonese heritage. His father, of Indian descent, fled the SAR when he was just 7 years old, leading to him and his mother moving to the UK to live at his grandparent's home. He picked up playing cricket while in school, and his talent was discovered through the Peachy Pups youth academy. At the age of 16 he moved to South Africa to pursue a professional cricket career, with ZCC purchasing his contract for 1.85 million pounds before he had even played an official league game.
Gwong Long will be the first coach of Cantonese heritage at FHK. We wish him the best of luck as he puts his lifetime's worth of experience and his passion for the game towards developing the next generation of Cantonese cricketers.