MONTEGO BAY, St James — It’s not every day young sports prodigies get the chance to meet their idols in person.

That dream came true for 10-year-old St James Prep grade six student, Gabrielle Bryan last Wednesday when Stafanie Taylor, captain of the ICC T20 World Champion West Indies team, showed up at her school.

Last year, ‘Gabby’, as she is called, had mentioned she would like to meet the cricket star and her coach, Dwaine Humphrey reached out to Scotiabank, sponsors of the Prep school cricket competition, and the connection was made.

The meeting was supposed to be a surprise, but young Gabby, who was dressed in her cricket uniform, ‘spoiled’ the surprise as she met the group at the school gate and walked straight into Taylor’s arms, her mouth wide open and disbelief in her eyes the entire time.

“I am speechless,” Bryan told members of the media afterwards. “I feel fantastic because it has always been my dream for her to visit me.”

Asked how she felt after meeting Taylor, whom she has watched for so long from a distance, Gabby said they had made a connection, “She’s like my sister.”

It was the first time Taylor was visiting a young fan and she said the experience was great. “It was really nice to meet Gabby who has wanted to meet me a long time, and the atmosphere was really great. I am really thankful.”

She said she did not have any idea what the event was about before she arrived in Montego Bay, “I just heard about this little girl who wanted to meet me, but I had no expectations…now I feel like a real role model,” she laughed.

As for any advice she would give to the youngster, Taylor said: “She has been doing great things, fantastic things. I wish I could have seen her play the game and I just said to her ‘You have been doing so well in sports and have a far way to go and continue to do what you are doing. And if you love the game that much, you will get to where I am.’”

Bryan, who has a top score of 81 made in a game against Hemmingay Prep last year, and has taken five wickets in a game once, has a record for cricket ball throw of 43 metres plus, done at the Western Prep Schools Championships. She also plays on her school’s football team in the VMBS Under-13 competition.

Cricket, she said, is her favourite sport. “It has made me a better person. I am physically fitter, everything in one.”

She refuses, however, to choose an aspect of the game she likes best and said adamantly, “I can’t choose, I am an all-rounder. I like to bat and to bowl.” And while she is not sure what she wants to do as a profession yet, she knows she wants to play cricket for as long as she can.

Her mother, Judith Symmester, who was also present, is a self-professed “lover of all spectator sports”, but said she has no idea where her daughter got the love for the game, or the gift she has.

“Her passion for the game amazes me,” Symmester said. “She does not just watch the game on TV, she breaks it down ball by ball, and she analyses the game as she watches it.

“She is not afraid of working hard and she balances both books and sports,” her mother said, telling a story that after taking a break to prepare for the GSAT exams earlier this year, she was back at cricket practice the first Monday after the exams.

Symmester explained that her daughter, the second of two girls “is not a ‘tomboy’, but she loves sports and her phone and tablet are filled with all kinds of sports apps which she constantly tries to match herself against”.