In that period Mason, who doesn’t turn 18 till next month and has just finished Wakatipu High, where he was head boy, played his first games for the Otago Volts — three Super Smash T20s at nearby Alexandra’s Molyneux Park.
Opening the bowling, the pace bowler had Canterbury Black Cap Chad Bowes dropped off his first delivery at that level — "I was pretty nervous but I guess I backed my skills, like I’ve been training for ages".
Though very surprised to get the call-up, the Otago A player says it wasn’t totally unexpected as he’d been training with the Volts in recent times.
He’d also put his name up in lights last summer when he’d been New Zealand’s youngest player in the under-19 Cricket World Cup in South Africa, where he took four for 62 against India.
Mason says making the Volts from Queenstown’s harder due to our lack of facilities — "like, we don’t have an indoor centre".
"But I’m so lucky to get the support I get from Queenstown Cricket Club, Otago Cricket, NZ Cricket".
He’s also thrilled with new Otago coach, Australian Ashley Noffke, a former fast bowler himself — "he brings so much experience" — and with his team, which won its first two games before dropping its third.
Mason, who took a wicket in each game, estimates he’s bowling in the low 130kms.
"I outswing it at the top of the innings, then through the middle and at the back end of a T20 I try and bowl change-ups — yorkers, bouncers, off-pace cutters."
Mason has subsequently been reselected for the Volts and played for them in their win over Canterbury this week.
