His viral videos documenting the trials and tribulations of junior cricket have garnered the attention of some of the great figures in Australian cricket. Now Ollie Kerridge has revealed the secret to his success. <\/p>\n
The 11-year-old and his dad, Mark, have been documenting his cricketing journey for close to a year now, racking up an audience of more than 20,000 followers on the Instagram account @howzatollie, run by his father. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a larger following than Test hopeful Jake Weatherald (17k), and closing in on the likes of Beau Webster (28k).<\/p>\n
His content, which depicts the day-to-day habits of a typical cricket-mad youngster out of Cairns, has even drawn the eyes of some iconic names including former Test legend Mike Hussey and current Australian limited-overs captain Mitch Marsh. <\/p>\n
When asked what he believed was the secret to his online success, Kerridge said it came down to showing the highs and the lows of being a young cricketer. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s the positivity of the videos, while also showing the negatives that come with playing cricket,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s me getting 70 in one video, but there\u2019s also me getting out for a diamond duck. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome people might only want to show the good, and not the bad, but I want to show it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark said the experience of having his platform go viral has been \u201cmind-blowing.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been such a positive experience, the amount of positive comments, and feedback has blown our mind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these people seem to be on his journey with him. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just a little family from Cairns, and we\u2019ve been down to Brisbane or Melbourne, and he gets legitimately swamped by people who follow the account. <\/p>\n
\u201cUp here, he\u2019s just Ollie. The cricket community of Cairns knows him, but he\u2019s just Ollie. Down there it was just so different.\u201d <\/p>\n
The road to the top <\/p>\n
The daily vlog documents his journey to playing for the Brisbane Heat in the Big Bash League – Australia\u2019s top level franchise T20 tournament, and has been running for close to 300 days. <\/p>\n
Apart from showcasing the highlights (and lowlights) of his weekend matches in Cricket Far North\u2019s James Hopes Under-13s Cup (and more recently the under-18s Jimmy Maher Cup), it documents the training drills and net sessions he does every day to become a better cricketer. <\/p>\n
And Kerridge said it was his training regimen which served as the inspiration for the account in the first place. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t to get the followers or the views, it was just to kind of help other people out with drills, and then get feedback from people in the comments and help people if they want to do them,\u201d Ollie said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter school I usually have a shower, get changed and then we\u2019re straight down to the nets to go through a session. Dad and I edited the videos together. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely not me doing everything, the whole family\u2019s helping out.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ollie said he was initially nervous about putting himself out there, but said the overwhelming support has encouraged him to keep going. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn my first video I was pretty nervous, I had to have a broad brim hat, and sunglasses on,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut we\u2019ve seen how positive people have been and it\u2019s just great. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been good to see the effort we\u2019ve put in has been showing. From day one I never would\u2019ve thought that this would be going for so long. I expected a few views and comments and for it to just be like that.\u201d <\/p>\n
The opportunity of a lifetime<\/p>\n
Kerridge said his \u2018meet your heroes\u2019 moment with Marsh and Hussey went about as well as he could\u2019ve hoped for. <\/p>\n
Kerridge met the pair as part of Airbnb\u2019s promotion which saw four guests invited to stay on the WACA ground and meet \u2018Mr Cricket\u2019 in the lead-up to the 2025\/26 Ashes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe person who got to stay in the tent with Mike Hussey, they\u2019re just so lucky, it was so great,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey had so much cricket memorabilia and backyard cricket set up, it was just excellent. <\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought I\u2019d meet Mike Hussey or Mitch Marsh, I was speechless. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d think they\u2019d be pretty serious people, but they weren\u2019t, they were super fun and even playful.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His viral videos documenting the trials and tribulations of junior cricket have garnered the attention of some of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[161124,64,63,689,35086,161133,161125,22249,161126,651,57608,740,161120,125803,68663,117533,161127,161128,161130,647,136385,3453,673,677,161122,46,701,161119,85,670,161131,161123,660,161132,16834,161121,3439,161129],"class_list":["post-277714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-account-run","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-cricket","tag-australian-cricket-legends","tag-australian-limited-overs-captain","tag-big-bash-league","tag-brim-hat","tag-brisbane","tag-brisbane-heat","tag-cricket","tag-cricket-heroesollie","tag-cricket-legends","tag-cricket-memorabilia","tag-diamond-duck","tag-gun-tons","tag-help-people","tag-junior-cricket","tag-melbourne","tag-mike-hussey","tag-mitch-marsh","tag-new-south-wales","tag-oceania","tag-ollie-kerridge","tag-perth","tag-queensland","tag-rachel-claire","tag-sports","tag-sydney","tag-top-level-franchise","tag-typical-cricket-mad-youngster","tag-victoria","tag-viral-online-sensation","tag-viral-videos","tag-weekend-matches","tag-western-australia","tag-young-cricketer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}