Beyond a Boundary

JP King was not in a hurry. Four out of four coaches who helped King on his journey mention his hand-speed first when asked of his attributes. They also point to his incredible strength and the fact that he can hit the ball a mile. He is ideal for T20 cricket. It is easy to picture him thrashing balls over the leg side boundary.

But, that’s not what he was doing against Bangladesh Emerging. He was applying pressure on the bowler through patience. King was happy to wait for the bad ball, and it always came. This one was from Abu Hasim, 43.1 overs into South Africa Emerging’s innings. The slow left-arm spinner pitched a short delivery that didn’t do much just outside off stump. King rocked onto the back foot and drilled it to the boundary. The shot took him to 93 runs from 139 balls.

Hasim adjusted his line and length, and the next ball was fuller, targeting the stumps. King got to the pitch of the delivery and smothered it. He was waiting for the next boundary ball. King inched to 99 in the next 20 deliveries he faced. Then he left, blocked, smothered, and nudged nine of the next 10 balls Bangladesh’s twin spinners sent his way.

The Indian poet, Kabir Das, once said, ‘Everything happens at its own pace. The gardener may water with a hundred pots, but the fruit arrives only in its season.’ The 10th one was short and outside off, ripe for the picking. King shifted his weight onto the back foot and smeared the ball through the covers to bring up his century. It was a low risk shot, just the one he had been waiting for.

The quote is also a micro representation of King’s journey. He showed potential for great things early in his journey, but it took a little longer than than most would have envisioned. There has been a bit of waiting.

He had to wait for his brother, CJ, to fall in love with the game before he had a practice partner in backyard cricket. He tried to force the matter in the first days: he tricked CJ into leaving his toys to come out to play with him, devised ways of keeping him outdoors for as long as possible. But it was all under duress. Eventually, he gave up.

CJ eventually grew to love the game and the siblings bonded over shared dreams of pursuing careers in cricket. Their backyard contests grew richer and more meaningful. The brothers dominated the local cricket scene.

“One of the first things I noticed about the boys (JP and CJ King) was their technical ability. It was clear they had paid attention to their technique from an early age. Every game they played in you got the sense that were match winners with bat and ball. What was missing was an understanding of how to build an innings and batsmanship,” Sammons recalled.

***

Jordan. Phillip. King. Combined, those three do not make an Afrikaans sounding name. But King is as Afrikaans as they come. The 22-year-old exudes the natural good-natured humility that is so valued in Afrikaans culture. He addresses me as sir until I ask him to call me by my initials. He says he was taught to always use an honorific when talking to those older than him.

He praises the coaches he has worked with when fielding questions about his success with the bat. When Sammons praises his early abilities, King points to Daryll Cullinan, who taught him the fundamentals. That early grounding is what caught Sammons’ eye and opened the door to St John’s College, where the boys continued their development under Sammons’ guidance.

The institution is the alma mater of South Africa’s first ODI captain, Clive Rice. It is also the nursery that produced Connor Esterhuizen and Keegan Lion-Cachet. It is an English medium school, which presented problems for the Afrikaans-speaking youngster from Vereeniging.

His performances on the field mirrored his academics. King’s star did not shine consistently until his Matric year. His late burst wasn’t enough to earn him a spot on the Central Gauteng Lions’ u19 Khaya Majola Week team. The snub hurt because making the team would have been one foot into the Lions team.

“My family played a big role in keeping me focused on cricket, especially early in high school, to just tell me to keep on going. Other people reminded me that it wasn’t the end of the world if you don’t get picked for Gauteng. It was really tough, I mean, because you want to play there,” King revealed.

Fortunately, King’s brilliant year secured him a spot in the CSA Invitational side, drawn from discarded Lions and North West players. King made two tons at the week, which earned him a spot in the SA Colts team. He also made another two centuries at the Cubs Week, which made Conrad de Swart’s decision on King easy. Sammons had told him about the youngster, and he saw in the two weeks convinced him to offer the batter a bursary to North West University.

“He is one of the most talented youngsters that I have coached. He could defend well and knew where his off stump was from the time he got here. I love the old school type batter that values his wicket. Strike rates in my opinion is sometimes overrated, as you can’t score if you are not at the wicket. JP had the ability to accumulate runs, hitting sweepers and putting the bad ball away,” De Swart recounted.

But, despite all these gifts, King began his university cricket year in the third team. He had to earn his place in the first team via the currency of runs. He scored a lot of them and could have gone up the ranks at a brisk rate had it not been for a minor flaw. King didn’t like running much. And that slowed down his progress.

***

The Warriors had a good start and then Tristan Luus happened. The pacer bookended the 22nd over with Jiveshan Pillay and Matthew de Villiers’ wickets. His first act at the crease was to watch Jordan Hermann smash a four, defend one ball, and get dismissed in the three balls that followed De Villiers’ dismissal.

Luus tested his defensive skills with a yorker off the first delivery he faced. King was equal to the task. He chewed up a few deliveries as he acclimatised to life in the middle. King scored three runs, a two and a single, off the first 18 balls he faced. But King wasn’t closing shop.

He smashed seven fours and a single single six off the following 57 deliveries on his way to a 75-ball 50. King was cruising. He added five more fours and another six on his way to a 129-ball century. Daryn Dupavillon banged in a back-of-a-length delivery. King went onto the back foot and punched the ball to the boundary to reach the milestone.

King was eventually dislodged after scoring a match-defining 143 from 179 deliveries. What remained of the Warriors’ batting order added a mere 12 runs after his dismissal. None of King’s teammates went past 40 runs in the innings.

“Quality batters always up the tempo the longer they are at the crease. This JP can do and was something we worked hard on, in addition to putting value on his wicket. Play the shots that was needed to be played on not go searching for balls that aren’t there,” De Swart recalled.

The coached watched him do it for NWU’s first team over an 18-month period during which King rattled off 18 centuries, two of which came at the 2022 USSA tournament, from where King walked away with the Batter of the Tournament accolade. He overshadowed everyone else and was rightly recognised as the Student Cricketer of the Year in 2023.

King followed the same template when the Warriors went up against the Dolphins. He did the same for South Africa Emerging. King faced 82 balls to get to 50, then he faced an additional 87 deliveries to reach his century. The 22-year-old upped the tempo and added another 49 runs from the next 56 balls he addressed.

The innings helped SA Emerging mount a mammoth total of 497, which set them up for an emphatic victory over the visitors. It also put him on the shop window for the SA A team. Hopefully, he won’t have to wait for long before he gets the nod to take the step up. But even if he was to, King can wait.

He understands that sometimes you don’t have to make things happen, instead have to let the game come to you.

Beyond a Boundary is a reader-supported publication. It is powered by our Patrons and the generous coffee buyers. It’s been a little cold and the coffees will go a long way in keeping my fingers thawed.

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Gysbert Wege’s false start

C. S Chiwanza — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 07:40:56 GMT

Gysbert Wege knew what was coming. He saw it before everyone else. Jos Buttler has a tell. The Englishman shakes his shoulder as the bowler gets into stride. Buttler’s shoulder shimmy is like a huge billboard warning bowlers that he is about to go to town on them.

It has become such a phenomenon that writers have dedicated sections of their articles to discussing the tell. A whole generation of batters wiggle their shoulders when at the crease because they watched Buttler and his tell and thought it was cool. They internalised it to the point where it is no longer imitation; they made it their inheritance.

There is a Spanish saying, ‘Qué lindo es soñar despierto.’ Loosely translated, it means ‘dream with your eyes open.’ Wege is a fan of Buttler. He might not be one that adopted the shoulder shimmy as part of his identity at the crease, but he looks up to the international star.

So, he had to pinch himself to make sure that he was not dreaming when he found himself on the non-striker’s end with Buttler 20.12m away. Durban Super Giants were playing a practice match and Wege, the franchise’s u23 signing for the 2025/26 season, walked in at five to join Buttler in the middle.

Wege was living the dream. He chatted with Buttler between overs and after the match. He also had Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen, among many others, at his disposal at training. He was first to notice the shoulder wiggle in their practice match. The bowler landed a delivery that Buttler launched the delivery back over his head. It was incredible.

Wege wanted the dream to keep going, but like all dreams, it came at an end too soon. The 21-year-old felt random chest pains on 31 December, had it checked out the next morning, and it turned out he had myopericarditis, an inflammation of the heart. His maiden SA20 season ended before it began.

***

Wege had a clear picture of what his future held. He wanted to be a professional sportsperson. Not just any sportsman, he wanted to be a cricketer. There were no alternative paths. He dabbled with hockey, rugby and tennis, but they were just dalliances.

He made the choice early. Wege started attending cricket clinics at around seven. His father hung a tennis ball from the rafters on the veranda, and Wege irritated neighbours with his endless ball-striking. A fond family memory is that Wege often talked his mother into throwing at least 20 balls for him before he did his homework or chores around the house.

Wege came within touching distance of his dream when he was 10. His father took him to Newlands to watch the Proteas play Australia. It is a memory he has carried since then. The immediate impact on his development was that he went from being a zealous student of the game to an overzealous one.

He took his zeal to Paarl Boys High, where he met Johann Louw, who helped turn his dream went from being a hazy idea to a clear vision. Wege began to take more interest on the things that he needed to take on board to turn himself into a professional. He also paid attention to all domestic competitions, keeping tabs on every game and watching as much as he could.

One of the first things Louw did was teach Wege discipline and staying in the game plan. The develop those attributes, Louw asked Wege to nominate a shot that he would play for 40 minutes straight.

Wege dedicated himself to the practice. Instead of taking the easy way out by nominating shot that came easy to him, he used the sessions as opportunities to master a variety of shots. Wege grew in confidence with each shot he mastered. However, confidence and mastery weren’t going to be enough.

Louw had seen many players with both attributes but failed to succeed. In 2015, he took the reigns at a talented but struggling Boland side. The side was fortunate that South African cricket didn’t have a promotion and relegation component at the time; otherwise they would have gone down the hatch.

“I had a 14-year professional career. It lasted that long because I went into matches with a plan and worked in the parameters of that plan. Most players in that Boland side did not have plans and that contributed to their downfall,” Louw recalled.

The coach used the discipline Wege learned from his shot nomination exercise to help the youngster stick to the plans he went into matches with. It transformed his game.

Wege put his skills on show during Paarl Boys’ tour of Pretoria shortly afterwards. He scored two half-centuries 76-odd and 88 against Garsfontein and Affies, then his pièce de résistance was a brutal 110 with the bat and a five-wicket haul with the ball against Waterkloof.

It was the first of two dominant visits to the highveld. The second was a year later, when he dominated at the North-South Tournament. He finished with the most runs: 347 runs at an average of 86.8 with a strike rate of 152.9.

Anyway, a week after his maiden trip to Pretoria, Wege carried his form into the Cape Schools Festival, where he mowed down bowling attacks. Wege struck 140-odd and unbeaten 128 against Queens College and Pearson High. The night before the final round of matches, Wege and Louw time on the phone discussing his game plan.

The next day he took a plan and a flamethrower to the Somerset College bowling attack. Wege scored an unbeaten 240 from 138 deliveries. Wege finished the season with 1416 runs at an average of 67.43. No Paarl Boys High player had ever reached that tally.

More appropriately, Wege bookended his high school career with centuries. The first was an unbeaten ton against Rondebosch and the last one was a 116 not out versus Westville.

***

Wege was difficult not to notice. Some players shine brightly in school cricket and then fade away afterwards. The top-order batter’s star did not lose its luminosity after high school and the junior national weeks. He did well enough in his maiden season with Maties (Stellenbosch) for the Warriors to come knocking.

Despite his admiration for the franchise and his desire to kick his dream into gear, Wege was unable to accept the offer. The timing just wasn’t right for Wege to move.

The decision merely delayed his professional debut. In the interim, Wege assumed captaincy for Maties in his second year and was selected for Boland’s Colts. He went on to make his professional debut in October of the following year.

If he wasn’t putting runs on the board, he was looking for opportunities to do so. That’s how he ended up in Johannesburg for the Joburg Super Kings Academy trials in 2025. His showing at the trials was commendable, but a few other youngsters also had good outings. Wege left Joburg hopeful that they would bid for him.

They didn’t. But Durban Super Giants had also taken notice of him. They raised their paddle beside his number at the auction.

***

According to medical journals, myopericarditis is inflammation in two different parts of your heart, but mostly in the protective sac around it (pericardium). It is a fairly uncommon ailment, so it’s no surprise that Wege had no idea what it was when the doctor first mentioned it to him.

The second thing the doctor told him was that his season was over. The nature of the ailment was such that Wege wasn’t supposed to get excited or get his heart rate up. He was, by all accounts, supposed to lead a life devoid of excitement over the next three months.

“It was a big bomb drop. Initially, I thought he was going to say that I would only be out for a few days. Three months is a long time,” Wege shared.

A few days later, Wege shared the news on his Instagram: ‘At 21 years old, it is not something that I had on my bingo card. I had no idea what it was until a few days ago. That being said, we are all dealt different cards in life and all you can do is play the hand you have been given and simply make it work.’

Besides his school work, Wege spent his forced time away from all strenuous activity reading books, streaming series, and learning Spanish on Duolingo. It’s hard to know if his proficiently in the language means that he understood the phrase, ‘Qué lindo es soñar despierto.’ But, it was enough to help him understand Spanish shows.

Wege was cautious with his return to an active lifestyle. He kept track of all of his stats. He measured his heart rate for everything from short distance running to the first time he completed a 5k run. He kept an eye on it when he played paddle and in gym. He also closely watched how many calories he burned in his sessions.

All indications pointed towards an improved heart strength. The myopericarditis had not left long-term damage on his organ.

Wege picked up his cricket training from where he had left off before the ailment. He touched on a few new skills, skills he had picked up from Buttler and the other stars during his short stint with Durban Super Giants. He incorporated things he picked up during his lay off.

And as he has always done in his journey, Wege did more work to refine and bolster his strengths. Hopefully, they will stand him in good stead when he makes his return to the field.

Van Biljon's marathon

C. S Chiwanza — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:20:00 GMT

Joshua van Biljon is not in the habit of breaking bats. It’s just not in his veins. He is reserved by nature and the worst he can do in moments of extreme disappointment is hitting his pads or dropping his head and walking off the field with his shoulders down.

On July 20th, he had the century was in full view. He needed three runs to get there. Then Jack Nelson got enough turn on the 375th delivery of the innings to take the edge and fly to Ben Dawkins, who pouched the ball at first slip. It was a rather tame delivery to end a brilliant innings.

Anyone else would have been tempted to hurl bats or gloves once off the pitch. Van Biljon let out a muted scream, shook his bat briefly, and trudged off the field. The 18-year-old had composed himself by the time he reached the pavilion, where his teammates and staff were applauding.

He might not have reached three figures, but his 97 was the difference between winning the series and England having a shot at levelling the scores. Thanks to him, South Africa u19 claimed their first Youth Test series victory on English soil in 23 years.

***

Joshua van Biljon spent an eternity in the middle. In the first innings, he walked in to bat in the second over and did not leave until the 68th. He was an immovable force for his 203-ball 72 in the first innings. The 162 dot balls he smothered almost equalled the deliveries Jack Nelson faced in England’s first innings. Nelson was England’s highest scorer in their first outing with the bat with 128 runs from 179 balls.

Van Biljon’s marathon knock was one of two central planks that supported Jason Rowles’ march to a history-making double century. His second innings felt like the continuation of the first. Van Biljon was employing an old school plan. South Africa u19 batted through 79 overs in the second innings and 27.5 of them were directed at him.

Add the 33.5 overs he batted through in the first innings, he totaled 61.1 overs from which he made 169 runs for twice out.

Van Biljon showed a great awareness of where his off-stump was. He blocked all balls that looked aimed at it. He picked off anything straight and left a lot when the bowlers went wide. He sprinkled a few drives into his repertoire and hooked anything short.

Charlie Harmison forgot how good Van Biljon was on the back foot, so he employed the short ball tactic on the fourth morning. The pacer banged in five short ones. England retrieved three of them from the boundary. The hosts abandoned the tactic, which was one of many that the hosts employed in an attempt to dismiss him.

Van Biljon held things together for South Africa from the second ball. He walked in to replace Jorich van Schalkwyk, who was undone by Bradley Sylvester off the first ball of the innings. Van Biljon watched seven batting partners come and go. The visitors had taken an England victory off the table when he eventually lost his wicket in the 63rd over.

It was an eternity of batting. One whose perfect ending would have been a three-figure score, not 97 runs.

***

Joshua van Biljon had his first major heartbreak when he was 10. He left the KZN u11 trials with a good feeling. His parents, Mario and Carole, were also convinced he had made it. Van Biljon had done everything that was asked of him and more. The family was certain that he was going to be picked for the KZN u11 team. But, he wasn’t.

The family got the bubble bursting message as they were driving home. It was a gut wrenching moment. Van Biljon was 10 at the time and had been working towards making his first provincial team for a while. He had poured as much as his 10-year-old body could allow. Mario didn’t wait until they got home to have a chat with his son.

“I know I’ve been promising you and telling you don’t worry, you’re in this team, but they haven’t selected you, my boy. It doesn’t matter. You get back in the nets tomorrow and we carry on training and you don’t worry about what has happened. They can take selection away from you, but they can never take your ability to continue to improve away from you,” Mario told his son.

Van Biljon internalised his father’s advice. He was back in the nets the next day. There were new goals to work towards. He scored a match-winning 76 in his next outing. Serendipitously, one of the batters in the u11 team suffered an injury a few days later, and Van Biljon was called up to the side.

He got better each year. He also didn’t miss any other provincial teams, unless if you consider the 2024 Khaya Majola Week squad. Only Ross Coetzee outscored him in their section in the province, so he had his fingers crossed that he would be called up. He wasn’t. Van Biljon was selected for the u17 squad instead. Van Biljon travelled to Pretoria and helped the KZN team lift the title. The heroics got him into the 2025 Cubs Week.

Joshua van Biljon has lived by the advice he got from his father as a 10-year-old. Each failure or disappointment is not an indictment on him as a cricketer or a person. He controls the controllables and leave the things beyond his power well alone. His century in red ball cricket has not been denied, it’s just delayed.

A star is born

C. S Chiwanza — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:29:31 GMT

Jason Rowles didn’t always have someone to play with or throw balls at him when he was young. So he devised a game. He planted cones in the backyard. Each represented a fielder. Rowles’ positions were taken from the tactics he had watched teams employ on TV.

Then he would bounce the ball off the wall and try to guide the it into the gaps. He threw the ball into the wall at different heights and angles to make his one-man game challenging. Hours flew by and he wouldn’t notice. When his parents switched the lights on late in the day, he would convert his match into a day-night encounter.

His game was a practice in placement; he tried to thread shots between cones. However, he never got tied down to batting to the same ‘field’ because he watched so much cricket.

Ralphie Albert and Ali Farooq didn’t know this back story when they had a conference after lunch on day two of the second Youth Test between England u19 and SA u19 at the Sussex County Ground. But they had seen enough of him in the first two days to guess where he would struggle to play the ball. Rowles was on 199 and they wanted to stop him from getting the single that took him to 200.

Albert, the England u19 captain, made a couple of field changes as directed by his spinner. They closed one gap and opened another. Rowles nudged Farooq’s delivery into a vacant space on the leg side and took two runs. With that, he helped South Africa reach 400 runs. He also became the second South African player to reach a double century in YTests.

Grant Elliot was the first to do it in December 1997. He made an unbeaten 201 from 291 balls. Rowles got there in 294.

***

You were guaranteed to see one of two things when you tuned into the Sussex Cricket YouTube channel on day one: Rowles’ number 49 shirt staring at you or Joshua van Biljon’s 11. Van Biljon, who was in at first drop, walked out to the crease in the first over, following Mohammed Bulbulia’s early exit.

The surface was doing a bit and required the batters to knuckle down. Van Biljon and Jorich van Schalkwyk did so with a 59-run second-wicket stand off 149 balls. The wicket-keeper was a study in patience. After Van Schalkwyk’s dismissal, Van Biljon added 49 runs from 123 balls in his 112-run third-wicket partnership with Rowles.

He didn’t just take the shine from the new ball, he also took the spring out of the England bowlers, who were spent by the time the wicket-keeper walked back to the crease after a long shift. Van Biljon faced 203 deliveries in 257 minutes for his well-constructed 72 runs.

Rowles built his innings on the back of two his third-wicket partnership with Van Biljon and then his fifth-wicket stand with Bandile Mbatha. Between them, Van Biljon and Mbatha faced 71 overs. Van Biljon kept Rowles company as he compiled his first 62 runs. Mbatha was with him for the rest of his 107 runs. Like Van Biljon, Mbatha was content to drop his anchor and keep one end secure. The all-rounder stonewalled his way to a 223-ball 81.

***

Mumbai is a hot and humid place, especially in the summer. Temperatures hover around the mid 30s and rise to 38 on the hottest days. Rowles was 16 when he first visited Bengaluru and it was in the middle of summer. He had gone there on Dinesh Lad’s invitation. The Indian coaching maestro is viewed as one of India’s foremost talent whisperers. His extensive CV that features people like Rohit Sharma and Shardul Thakur among his students.

Lad watched a few clips of Rowles, was convinced of the youngster’s talent and invited the youngster to India for a few sessions. The youngster changed shirts twice each afternoon during training. However, the heat and humidity didn’t seem to have an effect on Rowles. He turned up looking energetic each morning and remained engaged throughout the 6-hour session.

He needed that level of endurance in his 411-minute marathon innings. Rowles looked unaffected by the long period he spent in the middle. If we break his double century into four blocks of 50 runs, we notice that his first 50 was the slowest and probably his hardest. He faced 101 runs to get to 50. The second one was the quickest and came off 54 deliveries, while the third and fourth came off 76 and 62 balls, respectively.

Rowles had 32.2 overs under his belt at the close of day one. He was on 123 from 194. It is hard to know whether he was aware or not, but he was two runs short of his highest score for SA u19, an unbeaten 125 against Tanzania in an u19 World Cup match. His first port of call on the second day was to get over that mark. He did so on the sixth ball he faced the next morning.

After getting over that milestone, another landmark came into view for the left-hander. Before the YTest, only four there were only four SA u19 players with 150 runs or more: Reeza Hendricks, Faf du Plessis, Morne van Wyk, and Grant Elliot. It took him 232 balls join the club. From then onwards, he was climbing the ladder to the top of that list.

He faced 10 deliveries to go from 150 and surpass Hendricks’ marker. The Proteas star made 156 from 263 in 2007. Rowles went past Hendricks in style, he lofted a wide delivery from Albert over cover for a six. The shot also brought up his 100-run partnership with Mbatha. The stroke brought Faf du Plessis’ milestone into view.

The former Proteas captain and T20 star put the England u19 bowlers to the sword as he compiled 177 runs from 244 balls at Chelmsford in 2003. His innings lifted SA u19 to 646/9d and set them up for an emphatic victory by an innings and 163 runs. Rowles needed 262 deliveries to equal Du Plessis’ tally.

The Gert van Rensburg Stadium in Fochville has not seen a cricket match in years. Not even a club match. It sits in disrepair. It has been in that state for years. The forgotten venue was the site of Morne van Wyk’s 188 in a match where five of their players got starts and failed to convert, and two others, Johann Myburgh and Gulam Bodi made 64 and 69 runs.

Rowles unfurled a lovely cover drive to match Van Wyk’s total 12 balls after equaling Du Plessis’ tally. He now needed only 13 runs to get to the top of the ladder. Those 13 runs came off a further 20 deliveries.

“l told him last this might be his last innings, so, he must go big,” Bongani Ntini, Rowles’ long time coach, shared.

The two spoke after the first day of action. Rowles listened to his coach and went big.

Majola started it, Basson finished it

C. S Chiwanza — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 06:31:30 GMT

Ali Farooq was rattled. JJ Basson sent a back-of-a-length delivery that reared up and struck him on the helmet. The umpires called in the medical team to perform the necessary concussion protocols. Farooq was cleared to continue. Basson was in an unforgiving mood and got Farooq to wear another short ball on the torso two balls after the one on the helmet.

England needed just over 50 runs to win. They could also save the match if they held on for another 30 minutes or so. Farooq was happy to keep fighting, as long as he faced anyone not named Basson. Unfortunately, the spinner faced 13 balls for his 16 runs. All of them were from Basson.

His batting plan against Basson was to move away from the line of the delivery each time the left-hander bowled. His running away technique helped. He inside edged one to the boundary. Farooq swiped at another and somehow pierced the field. Threw his bat at another one and got a boundary from it. After his fourth boundary in 11 deliveries from Basson, it felt as if Farooq was winning the cat and mouse game.

Basson eventually put Farooq out of his misery with a delivery aimed at the stumps. South Africa celebrated. Farooq breathed a sigh of relief. The visitors had registered their first win over England u19 in a 4-day Youth Test since 2013. It was SA u19’s first victory in YTests in England since 2003.

***

Bayanda Majola’s first 4/47 came in March 2026. It was against Western Province in a List A match. He was in a Dolphins squad that had the past and the future in their bowling attack. Majola was the youngest player in the side. At 19, he was 27 years younger than the oldest person in the team, Imran Tahir.

The Dolphins knew what to expect from Tahir. Cricket’s Mr. Miyagi was going to help them control the middle overs. They needed Majola to give them a good start, which he did with an early wicket. Majola starts well. He has made a name from getting early wickets.

“It’s important to have a fast bowler who starts the innings well. He sets the tone for the rest of the innings. I remember in my first Khaya Majola Week when he was playing for us. We were in Cape Town, the first ball that he bowled at the tournament was a wicket. Game two, the first ball that he bowled was also a wicket,” Sam Mofokeng, the Dolphins Academy coach, shared.

Mofokeng also explained that Majola has a way of making things happen when it looks like there is nothing happening in the surface. This makes him useful in the middle overs and at the death. Infact, his next three wickets against Western Province came at the death. He claimed three in four balls.

His second 4/47 came three months after the first one. Like the first one, it was in a learning experience. The South Africa school cricket circuit is full of T20 matches. They are easier to schedule into the academic calendar. The closest many get to red ball cricket is two-day cricket.

To my knowledge, there are only three festival that feature two-day matches. Not every team can attend all three. South Africa went into the Youth Test series with only three players with experience in 4-day cricket. Jason Rowles, Jorich van Schalkwyk, and Muhammed Bulbulia. They were all part of the u19 side that faced England u19 last year. Also, Bulbulia played first-class matches for the Tuskers.

The rest of the side went into the first YTest at Beckenham long on theory and short on experience. Joshua van Biljon, for instance. He knew what he was supposed to do and then didn’t execute in the first innings. He took the lessons from that outing and applied them in the third innings. He scored a 146-ball 58.

Majola took the new ball. He knew that he was supposed to bowl in the channel. As he ran in, you could tell that he was trying to find the right line and length. He looked like a pro with a few seasons under his belt when he got it right. England’s batters breathed a sigh of relief when he did not. Unfortunately for the hosts, Majola got it right more often than not in his first three overs.

Majola delivered three probing overs. Ben Dawkins and Jacob Blades struggled to cope with his speed and lines. Dawkins edged behind for five runs and Majola sent Blades’ bails flying with the last ball of the day. He finished the day with two wickets for two runs from three overs. England was on 13/2 when the umpires called stumps.

Majola picked up from where he left off on day one. He made the English batters uncomfortable and eventually accounted for Will Bennison and Caleb Falconer early on day two. He didn’t claim any more wickets in the innings. JJ Basson, Michael Kruiskamp and Ntando Soni took care of the other five wickets. Majola finished the innings with 4/47.

***

Two years ago, JJ Basson ran through the Swaneville batting order in a manner that he hasn’t been able to replicate since. It is doubtful that he will ever re-enact that feat. He took two wickets in his first over, three in his second, another three in his third, and then took one more off the first delivery of his fourth over. He finished with nine wickets for one run in 3.1 overs.

It is the kind of performance a player can chase for the rest of their life. However, it is almost impossible to recapture. If there is a performance that he might come close to recreating or can surpass, it is his second innings against England u19.

Unlike the first innings, where Majola gave the visitors gave the most ideal start, England had the better start. They had 61 runs in the board when they lost their first wicket. Basson got his first scalp halfway through his second spell. He then got another just before he had to take make way for someone else.

Basson came back for another short burst in the 47th over and got South Africa the wicket that brought Caleb Falconer and Manny Lumsden together. The duo formed an incredible sixth-wicket partnership that looked impregnable. They were looking so comfortable it looked like South Africa was waiting for one of them to make a mistake. Neither did.

It took an incredible diving catch from Van Biljon to break the partnership. The wicket, which was off Majola’s bowling, opened an end and Basson took full advantage. He patiently stuck to the fourth and fifth stump line until Harry Wallace couldn’t resist the temptation. He tried to guide the ball away and sent it to a fielder.

One of the hardest things to do is to take the ball out of Basson’s hands when he is on a roll. First, because he doesn’t want to let go of it. Second, because when in rhythm, he peppers good areas. South Africa’s plan was to bowl their strike bowlers in short bursts. Basson kept going. The left-hander bowled an immense eight over spell that saw the visitors over the line.

He justified the move by dismissing Falconer with the first ball of his fifth over of the spell. Four overs later, Basson cramped James Minto with a delivery that caught the outside edge of his bat and flew to the slips. The next man in was Ali Farooq, and we all know how that went.

Remember the name - Joshua van Biljon

C. S Chiwanza — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 06:46:13 GMT

South Africa u19 player, Joshua van Biljon, is one to look out for.

There is an unused net on one side of the Van Biljon home. It started off as a concrete strip close to the boundary between them and a neighbour. Then around 2012, Mario van Biljon noticed his son’s ability with bat and ball and put his DIY skills together.

He laid a layer of asphalt mixed with a bonding agent on the two-metre strip. That was the batter’s end. Then he dug holes for the poles before wrapping the area with nets. For decades, sitcoms evangelised the idea of man caves. This utilitarian space was Mario and Joshua’s version of it. Father and son spent many afternoons and early evenings there.

Still head. Watch the ball. Semi-flexed knees. Hit the ball under your eyes. Mario poured everything he knew about cricket into Joshua. The older Van Biljon played cricket in high school and had the potential to carve a first-class career, but there was no money or security in the game, so he went into business.

Mario threw so many balls that he risked his arm falling off, so he bought a bowling machine. One of the small ones. Joshua faced so many balls that the machine broke down after a year. The replacement suffered the same fate. Joshua went through three machines in three years.

“I define a person’s talent on their mindset and not their physical skillset. Talent lies in the ability to sustain and commit to hard work and consistent practice over a long period of time. True talent lies in the mindset,” Mario shared.

The hours in the nets helped Joshua to develop a habit that would separate him from most of his peers for years to come: practice, practice, practice.

When he wasn’t in the nets, Joshua trained with Andrew Shedlock. He arrived at Shedders Cricket Academy a year after Jason Roy and Sarel Erwee’s spells there. Roy went there to fortify his game after breaking through into the Surrey first XI. Erwee was making a comeback after a brief sabbatical.

People went to Shedlock for various reasons, Mario took Joshua there for foundational training.

Shedlock made two immediate observations in their first few sessions: Joshua’s technique was ahead of his peers and he retained information like a sponge. The youngster found it easy to embrace Shedlock’s approach because they did not differ from his father’s much.

“Joshua didn’t take long before he started showing some great signs of what lay ahead of him. What stood out for me from those years was his temperament. He had an unbelievable temperament. He didn’t show disappointment or frustration when he got out,” Shedlock recalled.

Shedlock wasn’t surprised when he watched Joshua construct a faultless half-century as an eight-year-old. He was even less surprised, if that’s possible, when the youngster broke into representative cricket. He first made his mark as the only 10-year-old in the KZN u11 team.

Mario van Biljon has a few photos of Joshua with Barry Richards. Smiles. Attempts at serious faces. Batting stances. They tell a story that says fun was had. They are the kind of pictures people of a certain generation will print and hang on the wall.

After all, Barry Richards was one of the greatest batters from his generation. He was so good that people who watched him take bowling attacks apart in County or World Series cricket argued that he was among the top five batters they have ever watched.

Former umpire and Middlesex and Nottinghamshire player Bob White offered the best description for Richards’ abilities: “He was just always in the right place at the right time. He never seemed to be out of position when he was hitting the ball. You couldn’t find the length or whatever to make him hurry.”

Richards is one of Clifton Prep’s golden boys. He batted them to glory. Joshua did the same almost 60 years later. Richards went on to make a bigger mark at Durban High School. Joshua arrived there close to 54 years later and dominated with the bat. He was following in the great man’s footsteps.

It was a coincidence that things turned out that way, Mario enrolled Joshua to both institutions because they had strong cricket programmes. His hockey and cricket exploits for Clifton Prep made him a shoo-in for a sports scholarship at Clifton High. But then Shedlock, who was now the head of the DHS Foundation, reached out to Mario with a rival offer.

“I felt that DHS offered the best opportunity for Joshua to develop and grow in his two sports. It helped that I knew Shedders well,” Mario recalled.

The pictures with Richards were taken at the official opening of the Barry Richards High Performance Cricket Centre at DHS. It was a few months before Joshua began his schooling there. The photo opportunity came after Richards had shared batting tips with Joshua. For those that love symbolism, the session was a blessing or anointing of sorts.

DHS was the perfect place for Joshua. They have a programme that encourages athletes to have up to 90 minutes of training in their chosen sport each morning. Joshua being Joshua, he stretched that to two or three hours. The teenager also joined the team for the two-hour after school session.

“His work ethic through the years was far superior than any young cricketer that I have worked with, and I have been coaching since 2007 from a first team perspective,” said Fabian Lazarus, Joshua’s coach at DHS.

Lazarus would know. He coached players that include Keshav Maharaj, Khaya Zondo, Cameron Delport, and Senuran Muthusamy during their time at DHS. None of the above mentioned stars trained up to six hours a day as youngsters.

It is not an exaggeration to suggest that Joshua averaged over 1200 hours of practice at with Lazarus DHS in 2024. The previous year, he would have put in just under that figure because the school calendar had less than 200 days. In his cult classic, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell concluded that ‘training habits’ accounted for success more than innate ability. He might as well have been talking about Joshua van Biljon.

What made Joshua’s commitment even more admirable was the fact that he found time for hockey practice during the winter months. He was so good at hockey that he was selected for the KZN u18 IPT team as a 16-year-old. He was in line for the 2026 team, but his SA u19 commitments stood in the way.

“Joshua has a hunger and desire to work harder and put in hours of work to always ensure his prep is meticulous which allows him a platform to showcase his skill sets on game day and to become a match winner,” Lazarus reflected.

Joshua reeled off a long list of accomplishments under Lazarus’ guidance. He made his first appearances for the first team as a 14-year-old. Fabian played him sporadically in his first two years because the first team was settled and the youngster also needed to serve his time in the u15 and u16 teams.

The teenager proved to the world that Lazarus was not misguided by peeling back-to-back 1000-run seasons in 2024 and 2025, his first two full seasons with the first XI. In 2025, Joshua etched his name in the DHS history books by registering 1458 runs, the second most runs after Wade Wingfield’s 1510 runs in 1995.

There was a sense of inevitability about what Joshua was going to accomplish at the 2026 Cubs Week. Most youngsters suffer the misfortune of dominating school cricket and then suffering a dip in form at national weeks. Joshua was one of the few for whom the stars aligned. In 2022, aged 14, he finished the u15 Week as one of the top three run scorers. He helped Dolphins lift the title.

A year later, he was among the runs again at the u16 Week in Oudtshoorn. Again, he was one of the top three scorers, and he helped the Dolphins lift the title. In 2024, he was one of the younger batters at the u17 Week, where he outscored everyone and got the nod to attend his first Cubs Week, where he tallied the third most runs.

So, there was an air of expectation when he took guard on 05 Jan 2026. The Coastal Conquerers had 33 runs on the board. That was 13 runs more than the Western Legends at the same point. The problem was that they had gotten there by forcing the issue and lost two wickets as a result. The surface required a more measured approach.

Unlike his predecessors, Joshua adopted a more measured approach. He struck his first boundary off the 11th delivery he faced, and it was off a half-volley. That was the template through the first three quarters of his innings: respect the good deliveries and punish anything loose.

According to Barry Richards, the first 50 is the most difficult in an innings. That was true for Joshua that day. The teenager ran 31 singles, doubled up thrice, and carved four fours on his way to a 71-ball half-century. However, unlike Richards who often got bored after reaching the milestone, Joshua was difficult to dislodge once he was set.

That’s how he ended up with 1458 runs at an average of 63 in 2025. That’s also how he racked up 300 runs in five innings at an average of 100 and a strike rate of 85 for DHS in 2026. Against Legends, Joshua upped the tempo and bashed 42 runs from the next 30 balls he faced. He finished the match with an unbeaten 95 off 101.

His effort helped the Conquerers secure a win with 2.1 overs to spare. Joshua finished Cubs Week with 219 runs at an average of 54.8. No one scored more runs than him. The hours in their now-disused net at home, the countless balls he faced in the nets at DHS; all of it, it had been preparation for this moment.

Joshua van Biljon delivered.

Grit, Guts, and Glory

C. S Chiwanza — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:06:28 GMT

Ben Stokes channeled his inner Samson. The former England Test captain brought the walls down on the House of Bazball in his last Test. His final innings was a microcosm of Stokes’ career: his talent was obvious, but he chose volatility. Stokes played for the team in some instances, but he chose to play for gallery most of the time. He was the main character in English cricket.

It got me thinking of one of South Africa’s less talked about former captains, Dean Elgar. The lefthander celebrated Aiden Markram’s third innings century as if it was his in his final Test. Elgar operated with a different philosophy to Stokes. The team came first. He understood that his duty was to serve the team. Below, I share a piece that I did for Nightwatchman in 2024.

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Pierre Joubert jumped off his feet the moment Dean Elgar’s bat made contact with the ball. He knew the same way he had known two days before the first day of South Africa’s first Test against India at Supersport Park in Centurion.

“As I watched him walk out of my office, I had a feeling that he was going to score big,” said Joubert, the Titans’ Commercial Manager and ex-captain.

Days before the Test, Joubert had asked Elgar to come through for a chat. The Titans had decided to give him a suite to accommodate his friends and family for his final Test at his home ground. A grateful Dean Elgar had promised Joubert that he was going to put on a show for his guests.

Louis Klopper was one of those guests. The 69-year-old coach was beaming with joy. Elgar is like a son to him. He enjoyed a close decades-long friendship with Elgar’s father, Richard. As a youngster, Elgar and Henry, Klopper’s son, spent so much time together they could have been joined at the hip. They were in the same classes, played together after school and played for the same cricket team.

“Dean was a special person, he wanted to practise and play cricket all the time. He was always pushing me for extra hours so much that he took over my Saturdays. We had two-hour sessions on Saturday mornings and afternoons,” says Klopper, who was Elgar’s coach at St. Dominic’s High School and the Free State provincial representative teams from the time he was 11 until he joined the national academy at 18.

“My life was a never-ending, non-stop innings. My father never said no to helping me with my training. If I said to him, let’s go to the nets at three o’clock, he would work through lunch, so we could go to the nets at three o’clock. And then when I’m done, I’d go and join the club side and train there. Instead of going to church, we spent three to four hours in the nets on Sunday morning,” says Elgar.

Elgar had the talent, but it was his belief in his destiny that drew people in. Predicting who will make it in cricket is inherently hazardous and the younger the player is, the harder it is. A lot can go wrong as the player develops. But Klopper had no doubt in his mind when he told Richard of Elgar’s prospects in 1998.

“Richard was visiting at my home. Dean and Henry were playing in the pool when I told Richard that when Dean plays at Lord’s I want to be there, watching live,” says Louis Klopper.

The prophecy came true in 2017. Elgar wasn’t just part of the South Africa side that played against England at Lord’s, he was also the captain, albeit, stand-in captain after Faf du Plessis flew home for his child’s birth. Elgar scored a half-century in that match. Klopper and Richard Elgar were in the stands. As grand as that occasion was for all parties present, it did not equal witnessing Elgar’s last Test knock at Supersport Park.

Watching Elgar dominate the Indian bowlers, Klopper was transported to the past. “When he went out to bat, he always said, ‘Sir, I will win this game for you.’ And he won a lot of games for me at St. Dominic’s and Free State. The bulk of his 79 fifties and 50 centuries were match-winning knocks.”

Everyone in the suite rose, in unison, as the ball raced in front of square. It was an imperious pull. With that shot, Elgar joined an exclusive club. He became the second South African batter after Herschelle Gibbs to score a century on all seven of the home grounds where South Africa played Tests during his career: St George’s Park, Kingsmead, Newlands, Potchefstroom, Bloemfontein, the Wanderers and Centurion. It is also more than likely that Elgar will be the last to do so.

Elgar’s century marked the end of an era, and it is fitting that he was on stage for the curtain call.

Elgar had a nightmare on the field on his debut. He faced 16 deliveries from Mitchell Johnson, couldn’t get the ball off the square and was dismissed for a duck in both innings. That became immaterial the moment Dale Steyn dismissed Nathan Lyon to win the match and the series.

Many professional cricketers play the game with a cold, business-like intent, a focus on the plunder of numbers; Elgar doesn’t. He rates his unbeaten 96 against India at Johannesburg in 2022 higher than the 160 he scored against India in India in 2019 or his brilliant 127 against Australia at Perth.

Elgar is a product of the old school. On his first day with the Eagles (now Free State Knights), his captain, Nicky Boje, welcomed the 18-year-old Elgar with a speech that can be distilled into five words, ‘fit in or bugger off.’ He was there to serve the team, not the other way round.

The speech didn’t make sense immediately, but things grew clearer as the season wore on. He was chastised for personal milestones at the expense of the team’s chances for victory and was praised for fielding exploits that turned the game, even though he did not do well with the bat.

“I play this game to influence the outcome. If you score big and don’t win, for me it’s kind of pointless. Rather get a low score and lose than get a high score and lose. At the end of the day, it’s about winning, it’s about putting the team first. I’d rather sacrifice personal performance to winning, I would rather win a game or a series than have personal accolades. For me, personal accolades are not spoken of. But winning is spoken of,” says Elgar.

His debut got even better when Ricky Ponting and the rest of the Australian team joined the South African team in the changing room for post-match drinks. Elgar developed goosebumps as he listened to Ponting give his final speech as a Test cricketer. The former Australian captain applauded Graeme Smith and his men. They were the toughest opponents he had played against.

“He cried in the final meeting. I was sitting there thinking, ‘This is a legend of world cricket, not Australian cricket, world cricket, and I’ve experienced his last Test. I was like, this is my first Test, things can’t be better than this,’” says Elgar.

And he was right, things did not get better than that night in Perth. From December 2012 to 2016, the period in which South Africa had the Test cricket mace, many from the golden generation retired, and with their retirement, South Africa’s batting powers waned.

In 2012, South Africa averaged 47.36 runs per wicket. In 2016, they were averaging 34.47. During that period, however, Elgar showed himself to be a worthy replacement for Graeme Smith at the top of the order. He was both the fourth-highest run-scorer and had the fourth-highest average among players who batted in 30 or more innings. He also scored the joint second-highest number of centuries for South Africa.

In 2017, South African cricket was faced with a different problem. The CSA board room was captured, to use a South African phrase. Thabang Moroe and Chris Nenzani performed a coup that led the organisation on the path to ruin. During Moroe’s reign as Vice President and Acting CEO of the organisation, Cricket South Africa lurched from one crisis to another.

After realising that CSA could not depend on India’s tours to South Africa to replenish their coffers, the then CSA CEO Haroon Lorgat decided to create a T20 league. Much like the present SA20 league, Lorgat’s T20 Global League was backed by Indian sponsors and potential team owners. That vision suffered a stillbirth.

Moroe and his new team upset CSA’s organisational structure and operations as they consolidated their hold on the board. The potential financiers jumped ship. They couldn’t invest in a turbulent situation.

Not only did CSA have to pay back team owners their deposits, but they also had to pay settlement fees afterwards. The organisation had spent millions of Rands planning and putting together the league. Moroe was burning through money at a faster rate than Cricket South Africa took to make it. In September 2022, Cricket South Africa was on the brink of insolvency.

Up until the arrival of SA20, 80% of Cricket South Africa’s revenue was off the back of the Proteas, South Africa’s men’s team. A large chunk of it came from hosting India and a smaller chunk came from sponsorships. Things came to a head in 2019 when the infamous Fundudzi Report was released and laid bare the wasteful expenditure and the crisis of mistrust between Cricket South Africa and the players.

Between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, other Greeks commonly accepted that ‘one Spartan was worth several men of any other state.’ Lycurgus, the founder of the iconic army, referred to Sparta as having a ‘wall of men, instead of bricks.’ Throughout his international career, Dean Elgar was the embodiment of Lycurgus’ Spartan warrior.

There is no better example of that than his 136 against England at the Oval. Elgar spent more than five and half hours at the crease batting with a broken finger for his 136. The rest of the South African line-up combined to put together 101 runs. His knock made South Africa’s innings look respectable and by extension, he helped sanitise South African cricket’s image.

It was in this era, the second phase of his international career, where that he carried his the bat twice to equal Desmond Haynes’ record. Like Haynes, Elgar carried his bat three times in Test cricket. He was South Africa’s highest run-scorer from January 2017 to December 2020 and averaged 40.88, the highest average by far among players with 30 or more innings.

Elgar carried the Test team on his shoulders. He played the most matches, was the most consistent, and scored the most 100s and second-most 50s. He gave his team and the fans something to cheer.

Dean Elgar was not supposed to play a farewell Test at home. He was supposed to simply vanish from the game. A sad end to the career of a loyal servant and former captain. Elgar was appointed captain of South Africa’s Test team in 2021, at the beginning of the third phase of his career. Graeme Smith was rebuilding the administrative side and Elgar was tasked with rebuilding the team.

“When I started playing in the Proteas set-up there was the legends of South African and world cricket playing in that side. Your responsibility as a player was looked after by them. They allowed you to come in and learn your game, and get used to the style of play of what international cricket demands.

“Whereas now we don’t have those experienced guys, we have young guys who have been selected on the back of playing a few seasons of first-class cricket, and that’s not their fault. It’s purely because we’ve lost so many players along our journey at quite a rapid rate,” Elgar shared with me a few months after he assumed the captaincy.

During his tenure, South Africa won five Tests, lost four and drew one. When they were winning, he was cautiously optimistic in the dressing-room and did his best to prepare his team for the worst days when they might lose by big margins.

“Captaincy is about worrying about everyone else and making sure they are in a good frame of mind. Dean is good at that,” says Joubert.

The bad series came against Australia in December 2022. Then he was sacked as captain. Shukri Conrad was appointed as head coach and he had wanted to steer the team in a different direction. Elgar didn’t feel as if he had accomplished what he had set out to do as captain, but he was happy to step aside. Conrad had his reasons and Elgar was sure he could still add value as a senior member of the team.

“You can either be very selfish in this environment or you can be a giver. For me, the question is, are you taking oxygen or are you giving oxygen?” says Elgar.

“When I first saw him play, it was against us. He scored 200 against us,” says Joubert. “He scored 60 to 80 of his runs behind square and down to third man, and he also scored some ugly runs, edges and mis-hits, all that didn’t bother him. There was no ego about him.”

Before the match, Boeta Dippenaar, the Eagles captain, had shared with Joubert his belief that Elgar was the only one in his team likely to have a great career with the national team. After watching the youngster compile his innings, it all made sense to the visiting captain. It wasn’t so much that Elgar had a solid technique, but his ability to keep his attacking instincts in check.

South African pitches are a weird hybrid of Australian, West Indian, English and New Zealand pitches. They are treacherous for openers. To be successful as an opener in red-ball cricket, one you needs to be comfortable shelving 70% of your their skill and technique and falling back on the other 30%, which is what Elgar did.

“I have heard commentators talk about how Dean doesn’t have good technique, it’s rubbish. He played the way he did because he had to do so for the team,” says Klopper.

Klopper has seen a different side of Elgar. As a teen, Elgar attacked from the first ball. His father, Richard, fondly remembers a match where the then-14-year-old Dean Elgar single-handedly chased down a score of just over 200 set by Noord Kaap, a Kimberly-based outfit that boasted a few Griqua (now Northern Cape) players. Elgar took down older, bigger and stronger bowlers as he scored an imperious 130.

Joubert agrees with Klopper’s assessment. “People underestimate the number of times he made the new ball old without making runs,” he says.

Klopper, Joubert and Elgar agree on something else: in professional cricket, you are always warming the seat for the next guy the way your predecessor warmed it while waiting for your arrival.

What Elgar didn’t understand was Conrad’s decision to leave him out of South Africa’s next two Test series. South Africa needed their strongest batting 11 to prevent India from ‘conquering the final frontier’, and in New Zealand, South Africa needed all the experience and skill to keep another record intact.

But, if there is one thing South African cricketers have come to terms with it is that selection decisions do not make sense.

In December 2022, Theunis de Bruyn shared with me that while he was happy at another opportunity to represent South Africa after he was selected for South Africa’s tour to Australia, he didn’t understand how it had come about. He hadn’t had a great domestic season in the lead-up to the selection. But most selection decisions do not make sense in South African cricket, anyway.

The best Elgar could do was beg Conrad for a final series at home and an opportunity to bid farewell to the home crowds he had selflessly served over the years. A sad end to a career for one of South Africa’s best openers. Elgar was South Africa’s leading run-scorer in Tests over a six-year period, he is the fourth-highest opener in the history of South African openers and the leading opener at home.

His plea was granted and he signed off in style. With a history-making century. South African cricket will not witness another red- ball opener like Dean Elgar again. Neither will any other opener feature in 86 Tests like him. This is the end of an era.

Zizi's impact

C. S Chiwanza — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:06:58 GMT

“I was fortunate. I had people who guided me, challenged me, and opened doors for me. And because of that, I carry a responsibility not to just play the game well but to grow the game where I come from,” Zizi Mkhize said.

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Zizi Mkhize knows how to make an impact.

In 2022, Mkhize had to be rushed to the hospital after he was struck in the face while trying to field a ball off his own bowling during a Sunfoil Hub Tournament match. He suffered a broken nose and cuts on the face. He begged his father and then the organisers to let him return to the game. He arrived in time to score an unbeaten 78 to carry his team to victory. He was 11.

Last year, I followed a match where a 16-year-old left-hander, Zizi Mkhize, played an outstanding innings for Jeppe High. He scored a brilliant 112 from 98 balls to guide Jeppe to safety before capturing two wickets for 26 runs in six overs to help his school secure a victory over South African College High School (SACS) in Cape Town.

When he is on one, Mkhize makes the scorecards looked like something a 10-year-old would create for their favourite player. Earlier this year, Kagiso CC’s premier league side scored 251/9 and Mkhize made 127 of those runs. His tally came off 123 balls. None of the other Kagiso CC players got past 25. The next best batter scored a laboured 50-ball 24. Mkhize also captured a five-wicket haul in the match.

Mkhize first took guard in his family’s lounge. He wore pads so oversized he could hide behind them, which was probably handy, because he needed as much protection protection as possible from his brother’s deliveries. Nkanyiso, Mkhize’s older brother, was six years older and had all the makings of a pacer.

It wasn’t long before the siblings took their sparring to their cramped backyard. Facing his brother helped to turn him into a competent batter. His skill also benefited from his father’s instruction.

“As his father and coach, I could tell that he could do things other kids of his age couldn’t do,” Thokozani Malinga, Mkhize’s father shared.

It is a statement one can expect from a father. All parents think their kids are God’s gift to mankind. But, Malinga, or Zikode as he is popularly known, wasn’t biased. Mkhize proved it by collecting a raft of best batter and best player awards at almost every tournament he participated in.

That aside, Zikode is an outstanding coach. In fact, he is something of an institution in their little corner of the world. He has coached Kagiso CC to a premier league title. Kagiso CC is the home to generations of players who picked up a bat and a ball because they had a dream of playing professional cricket.

Three of the players he has coached, Richard Seletswane, Thami Repelego, Tshepang Dithole, have the lived that dream. Seletswane is a Lions player. Repelego played for the Limpopo Impalas before he retired at an early age. Dithole made a name for himself at the Dolphins and is now with the Titans.

During the weekends Mkhize accompanied his father to Kagiso CC, where he mimicked what the adults did from the sidelines. When he was old enough, Mkhize didn’t need his father to be around to make the 45-minute walk to the ground for net sessions. The brothers strapped their gear on their backs and legged it.

The long walks led to a scholarship to Jeppe High School for Boys. He tallied three centuries and several half-centuries for their u15 team before he was called up to the first team to stand-in for an injured first team player. Mkhize took the opportunity and refused to relinquish his position in the top three.

It wasn’t long before the teenager showed the Jeppe coaches that he was more than just a top order batter and was a miniature version of Donovan Ferreira, who bats, bowls, and keeps wicket. Like the Proteas star, Mkhize is competent in all three disciplines.

“He is one of the most talented players I have ever seen. He can impact the game with batting, bowling and fielding. The impact he can have in all three spheres is incredible, and that makes him special,” Casey Arnold, the Jeppe coach, shared.

Zizi Mkhize knows how to make an impact.

His unbeaten half-century from 2022 will go down in Kagiso lore as their version of Graeme Smith’s 2009 SCG broken hand knock. His 127 against NWU Vaal will go down as the most transformative knock for Kagiso CC.

However, his most important outing for Kagiso, both the club and community, was not a single innings but five outings. Mkhize performed brilliantly on both sides of the ball for the Lions’ u16 team at the 2025 CSA u16 National Week in Boland. He helped the Lions to the title and was named Player of the Tournament for his all-round abilities.

The accolade came with a cricket net installation voucher sponsored by Sports Construct. Instead of choosing to cram the installation in their backyard, Mkhize opted to have the net installed at Thembile Primary School. Not only will it mean that he no longer has to walk for up to 45 minutes to Kagiso Stadium for a session, but also, other kids in the neighbourhood won’t have to make the same trek.

The net will not just be a place for cricket loving youngsters, it will also offer refuge to them from the societal ills that plug certain sections of Kagiso. According to Zikode, drugs are taking hold of certain sections.

Zikode’s work in Kagiso’s cricket community casts a long shadow. However, it’s safe to say that Mkhize has done enough to step out of that shadow and is creating a legend of his own. Whatever he achieves in his life and career, Mkhize will always be the person who brought cricket closer to the kids in his little corner of the world.

He is no longer just Zizi Mkhize, the son of Zikode, he is now also, Zizi Mkhize, the son of the Kagiso community.

Remember the name - Blake Simpson

C. S Chiwanza — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 07:08:53 GMT

Blake Simpson is one of the best hitters in the group of young and emerging players. The youngster left the Dolphins to join Northern Cape Heat in search of more game time. Side bar: Northern Cape now have two of the most exciting youngsters. The other one is Steve Stolk. Like that kid.

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You had to be there to see it. Evan Jones didn’t want to give Blake Simpson any width to free his arms, so he aimed at the 20-year-old’s big toe. Simpson took his left foot out of the way, caught the ball on the rise, and launched it over it the long-on boundary. It was an incredible stroke.

The shot took him to 32 off 13 deliveries. Most importantly, it left the Dolphins in need of 19 runs from eight balls for victory against the Lions. The Dolphins were in a pickle when Simpson arrived at the crease. Their top four and most senior batters were back in the shed for 60 runs. They needed 75 runs from 34 balls.

Simpson wanted to hit boundaries from the first ball he faced, that was not to be. He struggled to connect with the ball early in his innings so much so that his first boundary was off a leading edge. By the time he had faced an over’s worth of deliveries Simpson had seven runs to his name and the Dolphin’s required run rate had climbed to 15.

Those six balls were all Simpson needed to get his eye in. Simpson scored 25 runs of the next eight deliveries he faced. Twenty-four of those 25 runs came off boundaries, three fours and two sixes. You have to buy the ticket to have hope of winning the lotto. Simpson had bought one for the Dolphins.

Nineteen runs from eight balls gave them a chance at winning, but only if Simpson stayed to the end. He did.

The Dolphins went into the final over needing 16 to win. Siya Plaatjie decided not to give Simpson any width, so he went full and straight. Simpson almost deposited the ball on the roof back over the bowler’s head. Plaatjie went short, with the second ball, Simpson hooked it over the fielder on the long leg boundary for another six.

The Dolphins now needed four from four. Plaatjie fired in a great delivery that Simpson couldn’t do much with. The teenager squeezed a single off it. Nqobani Mokoena, who was at the other end, scampered for another single off the fourth ball.

Plaatjie went full and straight, aiming for Simpson’s big toe, with his fifth delivery. Simpson gave himself room and drilled the ball straight down the ground. The shot secured victory for the Dolphins and he finished the match unbeaten on 49 off 18 balls.

The innings firmly established Blake Simpson as a prospect for the future.

Simpson looked like a prospect right off the bat. The first shot he hit at Penzance Primary School was straight back over the coach’s head. It landed at the top of a tree at least 40 metres away. The shot would have cleared the field and earned him six runs in a match situation. However, in this instance, he was facing throwdowns.

“I was going through a sequence of shots to see if he could defend his stumps. The first one was a forward defence. I threw the ball and he hit it to the top of the tree,” Zayne Bux, Simpson’s long time coach, shared.

Penzance was Simpson’s second stop. His journey began on the front lawn of their home, situated on their family farm in Harding. His father recognised his potential early and constructed a net for him as an eighth birthday present. It was the best present for the youngster. Simpson responded by spending the majority of his free time in there.

Simpson made a mark for himself as a leg-spinner when he exported his talents beyond their farm. He first showcased his skills at school and then ran circles around bowlers at the u11 tournament. Word of his talent as a spinner spread in the KZN cricket circles and Penzance offered him a scholarship.

Simpson’s love for batting was apparent from the first session he had with Bux, and the coach was only happy to help him develop that part if his game. The coach helped him to tighten his technique and develop a compact defensive game.

According to Bux, Simpson practiced almost every day and was a permanent fixture at the night academy where they trained under lights with coloured balls. The off-season work yielded fruits and begun his ascent from the lower order.

The climb was complete when he was selected to open for the KZN Coastal u12 team in a match against KZN Inland. Simpson marked the occasion with a century. It was also his maiden ton in organised cricket. Simpson’s success at Penzance and in the junior provincial sides earned him a scholarship at Westville Boys’ High, where he continued his growth as a batter.

Simpson’s fondest memories at Westville were the winter months. The season came with a buzz around the rugby season. Simpson participated in the season by playing second team rugby. He also featured in a few first team matches.

“My most memorable innings in high school was probably in the 100-ball final versus Kearsney where I made 70-odd off 40 balls,” Simpson reflected on his career at Westville.

Simpson furthered his reputation as a big hitter with a blistering 56-ball 118 to lead KZN u17 to the title at the CSA u17 inter-provincial tournament. A year later, Simpson carved an unbeaten 153 off 103 for Coastal Conquerers at the 2024 Cubs Week.

Thirty-seven for three is not a good place to be in the first session of a three-day match. But, that is the position the Dolphins Colts found themselves in against Northern Cape Colts. The task to rebuild the innings lay on Blake Simpson and Slade van Staden’s shoulders.

Simpson was supposed to bat at number eight. His bowling hadn’t atrophied as his batting developed, he worked on it just as much. It was good enough for the Dolphins Colts to play him as a bowling all-rounder. Then one of the top six batters suffered an injury during the prematch warm up, and Simpson was now batting at number five.

Simpson shelved his extravagant shots and knuckled down to resurrect the game. He constructed an innings that Sam Mofokeng, the Dolphins Colts coach, would later describe as a mature knock. Simpson faced a century of dot balls, ran 26 singles, legged 12 twos and a couple of threes on his way to a match-winning 154-ball 103.

What made the innings even more impressive was that Simpson battled his way through cramps and soreness. The weather in Kimberley was unforgiving when they played the game.

“He showed that he was ready for 4-day cricket. He left well, blocked well, rotated strike well. It was a chanceless and mature innings,” Mofokeng shared.

Simpson’s knock set the Dolphins up for a comfortable victory by an innings and three runs. It was also affirmed that he is a well-rounded player and not just a thrasher. To show that the innings wasn’t a fluke, Simpson fashioned a patient 98 against the Free State Colts a few months later.

“He has made that made that mental switch that he wants to become an elite performer. Blake has knuckled down and settled down into a consistent performer,” Mofokeng added.

Like Bux, Mofokeng refused to take credit of Simpson’s success in the middle. They point to his tireless work behind the scenes as the reason. The right-hander has dreams of playing in the IPL and making the Proteas’ 2031 World Cup squad. Both coaches have no doubt that Simpson is on track to achieve both.

You have to watch him in action to understand why they have faith in his potential.

Cole Francis has come of age

C. S Chiwanza — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 06:04:20 GMT

Cole Francis did what few youngsters can do. Wits University picked him for their USSA squad in his first year after school. The pacer claimed the most wickets at the tournament. This was his coming-of-age performance:

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If you slap a blindfold on Cole Francis and led him to the top of his mark, he will land the ball on a hard length in line with the off stump. His target is either the bails or the splice of the bat. His inswinger brings bowled and lbw into the equation, while the outswinger brings the slips into the game.

That’s not what Luke Francis, his brother and captain at Wits University, needed Cole to do when he handed him the new ball against Madibaz at the 2025 USSA tournament. The pitches in Stellenbosch are a touch slower and the hard length would not work. Luke needed his sibling to pitch the ball up, targeting the stumps.

“Our plan was to be a bit fuller and at the stumps looking to dismiss batters by getting them caught in front of square instead of the typical Johannesburg dismissal by getting batsmen caught behind by bowling a harder length,” Cole revealed.

He needed to be on the money because losing to Madibaz would have sent them into a relegation match. And unfortunately for Luke and company, there was a real possibility of that happening. Wits, who had won the toss and chose to bat first, failed to get going the bat. Their top order stuttered, the middle order unsuccessfully tried to consolidate, and the tail folded.

Wits ended up with a below par score of 187/9 in 50 overs. They could have gotten more if Cole had spent more time in the middle. Cole can bat. Like many youngsters, he started his cricket journey as a batter who could bowl. Unfortunately, his bowling outshinned his batting and it wasn’t long before he found himself batting in the lower order.

But Cole never stopped working on his batting and a week before the tournament, he showed his value with the bat by playing a blinder to rescue Wits from a perilous position. They were on 15/4 when he walked to the crease. The all-rounder masterfully paced his innings to a 120-ball 106.

“Coach Nono Pongolo told me that I wasn’t in this team just to bowl, I needed to contribute with the bat. This was my chance to prove my capabilities with the bat. I took my opportunity by looking to occupy the crease and bat long,” Cole shared.

Against Madibaz, Cole scored an unbeaten 40 (47) from number eight. He was Wits’ second highest individual scorer in the innings. He had done his best with the bat. They now needed him to deliver with the ball.

“I was nervous going into the game because my teammates had told me about the stress of playing in the relegation game. It was a do or die match,” Cole recalled.

His first two deliveries were on the mark, despite the nerves. The third was a half-volley and Bavuyise Manyakanyaka sent it to the boundary. It was a game of small margins. Cole readjusted his radar and nailed 10 of his next 11 deliveries. On some days, such consistency and accuracy would have earned him a wicket. But this wasn’t school or club cricket.

Cole needed to buckle up, and he did. He finished his opening spell with with a single wicket for 23 runs in five overs. Fortunately for Wits, their other bowlers were on song. They saw to it that Madibaz did not enjoy a flying start. Esosa Aihevba, Cole’s new ball partner, struck early to ensure that Madibaz did not get a flying start.

Wits’ fielders had their tails up and were chatty in the powerplay thanks to Aihevba’s two early wickets and Cole’s single strike. Their volume went up when their first change bowler claimed two more scalps in the 12th over to help reduce Madibaz to 44/5. The flurry of wickets had the men from Johannesburg believing that they could defend their low total.

Then Kian Cambier and Jason Raubenheimer happened. They mounted a stubborn sixth-wicket partnership that shushed the Wits fielders with each run they scored, and the men from Johannesburg were mute, with drooping shoulders, by the 31st over. Madibaz was on 140/5. The writing was on the wall for the Francis brothers and Wits.

Bowlers have a near-delusional belief that they can rescue matches from the jaws of defeat 90% of the time. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to give their all when all looks lost. Cole is no different. He would have petitioned his captain to throw the ball to him if Luke had dithered to do so.

Cambier and Raubenheimer had settled into a groove and were on 55 runs from 70 balls and 50 off 60, respectively. Madibaz needed 48 runs from 19 overs when Luke Francis threw the ball to Cole. Raubenheimer welcomed him with a boundary. The all-rounder conceded eight runs in the over.

His new ball partner, Aihevba went for nine runs in the 33nd over. Madibaz was on 157/5 and had victory in sight. They now needed 31 runs from 17 overs. Cole sent down two great deliveries and then, as he did in his first over of the game, he erred with his third ball of the over and, once again, was sent to retrieve the ball from the boundary rope.

“Coming back into my second over of my spell the plan was to be aggressive and look for wickets because we had nothing to lose,” Cole recalled.

The fuller length did not work with the older ball, so Cole went to his default settings: hard length. That worked a treat. Cambier tried to cut the delivery past the point fielder. The ball went straight to the man at point. It was the beginning of a fightback.

One wicket turned into two. Cole dismissed the new man in two balls later. It was another delivery on a hard length; however, unlike the previous one which held its line, this one swung in from outside off and cannoned into the stumps. The men from the Eastern Cape went from 161/5 to 161/7 in three balls.

Madibaz now needed 27 runs from 16 overs. They also still had Raubenheimer in the middle. Aihevba maintained the pressure by delivering a two-run over. Cole, who wasn’t as miserly, conceded twice as many runs in the next over. However, he made up for that by prising Raubenheimer’s prized wicket. He also dismissed Kyle Glennistor in the over.

The double strike left Madibaz on 167/9. They now needed 21 runs from 14 overs. It was time for Wits to go for the kill. Luke Francis would have been able to get the ball out of Cole’s hands if he tried.

“The first ball I bowled was hit over mid-on for four runs, which now put the pressure back on me. But I just had a feeling that I would win the game for us in this over,” Cole recalled.

The pacer turned to his off-cutter, which has served him extremely in his nascent career. Esa Gangat, the batter, was expecting a pace on delivery. He didn’t pick the cutter. He lobbed the ball straight to the fielder at long-off. Gangat’s wicket was the fifth in an inspired spell that yielded five wickets for 32 runs in 5.4 overs. He finished the match with 6/43 in 9.4 overs. Madibaz crumbled for 172 runs in 37.4 overs.

“We were dead and buried when they needed 30 runs to win. I couldn’t believe that I had turned it around to get us to our second victory of the week. It will probably go down as the greatest game of cricket I’ve played with major contributions with both bat and ball,” Cole reflected.

Roll your wrists, Thomas

C. S Chiwanza — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 06:02:18 GMT

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Thomas Kaber smiled. It’s a sweet memory, one he can laugh about. He was grateful for it 17 years ago. He is thankful for it now.

He was 16, nervous and unsure if he would find a place in the Northerns dressing room. Then his mother saved the day in the most unconventional manner. She walked in waving a tube of sunscreen. He had forgotten it at home. She wasn’t about to let her son get burnt to a crisp by the highveld sun.

The team had a laugh about it. Older players wished they had mothers barging in with forgotten supplies. Everyone seemed to forget something at one point or another. The moment was the icebreaker the dressing room needed. With nerves settled, Kaber acquitted himself well by claiming seven wickets in the match, including a five-for in the second innings.

“I think I was too young to fully understand how special the occasion was at the time, but looking back now it’s definitely one of my best memories from early in my career,” Kaber reflected.

Kaber’s cricket journey started in the backyard in the late-90s. The early days had the standard fare of plastic bats, plastic balls, and plastic stumps. Then he graduated to old bats, tennis balls, and lots of arguing with friends in the backyard. In 1999, he got swept up by the whirlwind of the 1999 ICC World Cup excitement.

The parents at Kaber’s school were so excited that they believed that their seven, eight, and nine-year-olds were the next generation of Proteas stars that they organised matches against 11-year-olds. The bigger and stronger boys took their positions as pacers. Kaber, who wasn’t content with being a mere fielder, elected himself to be the team’s spinner.

He delivered ungainly off spinners. However, his career as an offie was short-lived, thanks to Shane Warne. Kaber watched the Australian star tie the Proteas down with his leggies in the middle overs of the semifinal and decided that wanted to learn that craft.

“My dad was devastated by the whole Klusener-Donald mix-up at the end, which is what most people remember, but what I remember is the spell Shane Warne bowled in the middle of the game. The way he suddenly changed the match completely fascinated me,” Kaber shared.

A broken window put Kaber on the fast track to leg spin mastery. He went into the backyard trying to bowl his version of Warne’s leggies the next day. A couple of windows suffered in the process. Kaber recalled anxiously waiting for his father’s return from work at the end of day. He expected to be in a world of trouble.

“Instead, he helped put up cricket nets in the garden so that I could keep trying,” Kaber shared.

The spinner also took ownership of his father’s copy of Peter Philpott’s The Art of Wrist-Spin Bowling. The backyard games with friends continued but Kaber dedicated the majority of his free time in his new nets following Philpott’s instructions. He was in there every morning and afternoon, before and after school, with a bag of bowling machine balls.

It was hours of bowl trying to bowl the perfect leg break or at least something close to one. Some balls missed the mark completely, some hit the spot. Kaber kept experimenting. The pay-off was that he developed a fairly consistent leg break and wrong’un when he got to u12 and u13 level.

Kaber bowled so much that he put in his 10,000 hours before he reached 16. That’s how he attended his first Coke Week at 16 and finished the tournament as one of the leading wicket-takers, and then making his debut for Northerns.

When you make your first-class debut at that age, the expectation is to be a first XI player in a Division 1 team in your mid-20s. Probably knocking on the door to the international cricket. Unfortunately, Kaber injured his ring finger in his matric year and didn’t bowl for two years.

“At first, we thought that the injury was minor and it would heal on it’s own. But it didn’t. Then I had to have an operation,” Kaber explained.

The road back was long and hard. However, one of leggies’ magical abilities is their ability to bounce back after setbacks. Kaber had struck the lottery at 16. Lightning doesn’t strike twice. Northerns had Shaun von Berg and a second spinner. The only available spot was in the top six. Kaber had to show that he could contribute on both sides of the ball to be picked.

The southpaw announced his comeback with a bat. He scored a match-saving century in his first match back. He was included Northerns squad for the Africa T20 in 2016. He went on to finish the season as the leading wicket-taker in the domestic 1-day Cup with 21 scalps in 10 matches.

Unfortunately, he had a hard time nailing a first XI spot at the Titans. Tabraiz Shamsi and Aaron Phangiso had established themselves while he was fighting his way back. Around the country, a host of talented spinners had claimed all the available spots by the time he regained mastery.

His big break came when the Warriors signed him in 2019, unfortunately, Kaber was their fifth choice spinner, and he rode the pine more than he played. Division 2 was the only place he was guaranteed regular game time.

Three years ago, tennis superstar, Carlos Alcaraz had his grandfather’s motto tattooed on his arm. It’s the three Cs, cabeza, corazón y cojones. Head, heart and balls. That’s what it takes to be a world beater. It is also what it takes to keep going when your career is being limited by an invisible ceiling.

After more than 10 years of endless hours in the sun, playing or training in South Africa and the UK 12 months a year. After over a decade of twisting his body to deliver leggies, Kaber’s head was telling him that he was done. His heart still wanted to stick it out, cricket was his childhood dream, and he had the balls to compete against the best. But his head…

“What kept me from retiring was the fact that you’re always going to wonder whether you could compete at the top level. I told myself, ‘If you give up now, you won’t ever know if you could have made it,’” Kaber said.

Division 2 is fraught with problems. One team got ‘locked’ out of good training facilities because they couldn’t afford the R1m lease at a local college. So, they resorted to training on matting. There are transport issues here and there. The pay scale is significantly lower than Division 1. The list of distractions Division 2 players deal with is long.

The off-field hurdles notwithstanding, this is where Kaber rediscovered his love for the game and the hunger to succeed. According to Kaber, the two years he spent with Border were some of the best of his career. His arrival dovetailed with Paul Adams taking up the head coach position.

It was the first time in his career that he had a pedigree spinner as his coach. It was a breath of fresh air to finally have someone with whom he could discuss the craft and tactics with after a career of figuring things out on his own. Kaber revealed that he learned a lot from the former Proteas player.

Adams had the second-most wickets by a South African spinner when he gave up Test cricket in 2004. He was 31. He could have overtaken Hugh Tayfield’s record had he played on. But, South Africa didn’t understand spinners in the noughties. They either deployed them in a holding role or tried to turn everyone into a wrist-spinner because they are easier to coach.

He understood the frustrations players like Kaber faced, so he strove to make Kaber’s life on the field easier. The leggie repaid him by hauling in 87 wickets in 34 innings. After his stint with Border, Kaber joined South Western Districts, and this is where his life changed. Unexpectedly.

Kaber could have won the lotto of working with a spinner-understanding coach in 2019. Unfortunately, Robbie Peterson arrived at the Warriors several months after Kaber had moved to Eastern Province. However, Peterson, who is famously known for keeping tabs on talented players, kept an eye on Kaber and when he needed a back-up spinner for season 2 of the SA20, he signed the leggie.

It was an unexpected signing. Kaber had been hopeful when he entered the auction for the inaugural season. No one showed interest. He submitted his name for the second season with no expectation and didn’t follow the proceedings. He only got to know he had been signed by MICape Town when he arrived for a team meeting.

“I was about two minutes late for the meeting. The first thing the guys told me was that I had been picked. It’s safe to say that I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the meeting,” Kaber chuckled.

SA20 was a big change. It was a world away from playing in empty second division stadiums with the driver and the cleaner as the only audience. Kaber didn’t have much to do in his first outing for MICape Town. Kieron Pollard threw him the ball in the seventh over. Heinrich Klaasen smashed two sixes on his way to 15 runs in the over. Pollard didn’t use Kaber again in the match.

The spinner got his revenge against Klaasen 12 days later. He bowled two balls to Klaasen. One went for a single, and the second was a wicket. Those two matches bookended Kaber’s best performance for MICape Town.

Kaber dislodged David Miller with the second ball of his second over. He sent down a well-disguised googly that beat the Proteas star all hands up. Then he closed his spell with the dismissals of Andile Phelukwayo and Fabian Allen in his last over to finish with three wickets for 20 runs in four overs.

The proof was there. Kaber belonged at this level. Thankfully, Peterson realised it and retained him for the third season, and Kaber was part of MICape Town’s title-winning squad. Peterson finally offered Kaber a contract with the Warriors in 2025. Seventeen years after his debut, Thomas Kaber finally arrived to a place where he commanded a first XI spot in Division 1.

This time, he didn’t need his mother to save the day. His travails through the lower league and his few appearances at the top had left him older and wiser.

“I have used every match as a lesson from the time I started. That’s also how I approach many things, so what might look like sacrifices now did not look like sacrifices when I was living it. Everything was a learning moment,” Kaber revealed.

Thomas Kaber did a shortened version of his run-up and bowled a ball with backspin. He turned, revealed that this was one of the first deliveries he learned from Philpott’s book and smiled.

Holes in the wall

C. S Chiwanza — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 06:02:03 GMT

Cricket South Africa just announced the u19 squad that will go on a tour to England. This is the story of one of the players selected. I have watched him with interest over the past two years. Ladies and gentlemen, I present, Nkosana Sibiya.

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Nkosana Sibiya and his great-grandmother created a timeless image. One that is difficult to forget and should probably have been immortalised in a painting. Everyday, a four-year-old Sibiya stationed himself 10 to 12 metres away from the perimeter wall, ready to face deliveries. His octogenarian great-grandmother perched herself on a low stool or an empty beer crate with a pile of ball of balls beside her.

Sibiya was never at the risk of running out of cricket balls. His father, Ntsongo, bought him all types, from tennis balls to rubber ones. In all of that, Sibiya preferred his great-grandmother’s hand-made ones. She dedicated hours of creating the balls from plastic shopping bags.

His great-grandmother’s handmade balls offered a unique challenge: they didn’t bounce and required effort to hit. Sibiya embraced the challenge and was routinely driving them into the wall, an old hollow brick job. He faced so many throwdowns that he punched indents into in the wall.

At one point, it got so bad that the indents developed into holes and she had to find contractors to rebuild it. One of his great-grandmother’s favourite refrain was, ‘Mosimane o tla ya kgakala ka selo se a se tshamekang’ — this boy is going to go far with the game he loves.

“She would throw the ball to him, and he would hit it back to her, trying not to hit her at the same time,” Ntsongo, Sibiya’s father, recalled.

Sibiya had an insatiable appetite for hitting balls, which sometimes overwhelmed his great-grandmother. Fortunately, she didn’t have to do it alone. There was an endless supply of relievers ranging from Sibiya’s parents to auntie and cousins. Next door neighbors knew they were always on call. Visitors weren’t spared the honour. Everyone made their way to Sibiya’s favoured spot close to the wall.

Sibiya was so attached to his bat that on rainy days, he faced deliveries indoors, where he seemed intent on lofting deliveries through the ceiling. That seemed to be Sibiya’s preoccupation, punching holes into barriers before him. He love for his bat made preschool drop-off difficult.

“He didn’t enjoy it much and often cried. The school had a strict no-toys policy, but they eventually relented and he was allowed to bring his bat, which made drop-offs easier,” Ntsongo shared.

It’s easy for a youngster to be the best batter in the world when they bat in the safety of their home. It is often a different proposition when they venture into the outside world. Sibiya was fortunate that his abilities translated beyond the family home’s hollow brick wall.

“When he was around four years old, we attended the Sunfoil Night hosted at the Soweto Cricket Oval. That’s when the Montrose Primary staff and management noticed him on the sidelines and invited him to join their school,” Ntsongo revealed.

Sibiya delivered his first big performance for Montrose Primary just five weeks before he turned seven. He scored a century, it was the first time he crossed the 50-run mark. It was a harbinger for greater things. Not long afterwards, Sibiya recorded his maiden double century in an NSSSC match.

One time, he arrived at the crease with his side floundering on 35/5. Sibiya knuckled down and scored a vital 61 that steered his side to a winning total. His consistency was so great that at one point, he qualified to play across all age groups, which meant he hardly practiced because he was playing matches every day of the week.

“One of his fondest memories is winning the Montrose Night tournament thrice, once for the u11s and twice with the u13s in consecutive years. The highlight was bowling the final over to secure victory for the second time in 2020,” Ntsongo shared.

Johannesburg has a vibrant club system, one of the best in country. It has been the bedrock in the development of players who include Connor Esterhuizen, Mitch van Buuren, and several others. South Africa’s Test captain, Temba Bavuma assimilated into the club cricket culture and joined Soweto CC as soon as he settled in Joburg. That gave him a front row seat to Sibiya’s development.

Bavuma was one of the few people who performed throwing duties for Sibiya on the sidelines of their weekend games. The Proteas skipper, who grew up in Langa, understands the difficulty of making it without access to the best development coaches. He set up the Temba Bavuma Foundation to help talented youngsters with scholarships to top cricketing schools to bridge the gap. Sibiya benefitted from the programme. He enrolled with St John’s College.

“My advice to Nkosana has always been to make the best of every opportunity given in life. When it comes to cricket, I remind him that it’s not about what the ball can do, but about what you want to do to the ball, so you need to be in control for as long as possible,” Ntsongo shared.

Sibiya arrived at St John’s determined to follow through on his father’s advice. The left-hander who had played up throughout his early years, proved himself to be too advanced for his peers. He was 15 when he made his first team debut and immediately proved himself to be invaluable.

In February 2024, Sibiya walked in to face the third delivery of the match against King Edward VII (KES). The left-hander played an inspired innings, scoring 153 from 154 balls to lead St John’s to 306 in 49.1 overs. None of his teammates got to 30 runs. Fortunately for the Blues, it was a match-winning innings.

Sibiya was one of the top batters at the 2024 National u17 Week, and made back-to-back trips to the Khaya Majola Week with the CSA Invitational XI in 2024 and 2025. However, his main goal was to be selected for the SA u19 side. The dream looked within reach when he was picked for the 23-man squad in early 2025. Then he had to watch it slip through his fingers.

The teenager can remember the day. May 5, 2025. Something in his hip gave away while he was attempting to complete a catch in a Jozi Cup match. It turned out to be a hip injury that ended his Jozi Cup campaign. The silver lining was that he could make the SA u19 camp for the tri-series with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe if he recovered in six weeks’ time.

Sibiya has a hand-drawn portrait of Ben Stokes in his room. He drew it himself in 2024. He has the England captain’s fight-against-all-odds mentality. Sibiya tried to hasten his recovery by sheer willpower. It didn’t happen. He was immobile for two weeks. His brother, sensing that the pain of losing the SA u19 opportunity was greater than the physical one, joined Sibiya in the living room, where he slept for 14 days.

Sibiya was in a race to be fit for the u19 camp. He wanted to launch into rehabilitation work as soon as he gained mobility. He realised on the first day of moving around the house with crutches that he was aiming too high. He spent another week convalescing before going into a three-week rehabilitation at the Wanderers Medical Centre. It got him close to his goal, but not close enough to help him pass the fitness test.

“He understood that why he couldn’t make the camp and made peace with it. He continued his rehab with Tim Fester until he completed his return to play programme,” Ntsongo explained.

Fortunately, CSA did not close the door on Sibiya’s SA u19 ambitions. If he was fit, he could still attend a later camp to decide the squad for the ICC u19 World Cup. Unfortunately, Sibiya re-injured his hip while on a tour of Sri Lanka with St John’s. The injury kept him out of action for another five weeks.

Sibiya has suffered injuries before but none had such an impact on his season. The second injury affected his performance at the trials for the Lions u19 squad for Khaya Majola Week. He also didn’t pass the fitness test for the SA u19 squad. However, the southpaw kept his nose on the grindstone. Twelve months later, he earned a maiden call-up to the SA u19 squad.

“Today, as I watch his journey unfold, I can’t help but think of her and wish she were here to see it,” Sibiya’s mother reflected.

She is there in spirit. The family still has one of her handmade balls. And if she could see him now, she would repeat that the money she spent repairing the wall was worth it.

From Ring Road to the Wanderers

C. S Chiwanza — Fri, 29 May 2026 08:01:28 GMT

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The key is in the wrist. Zakwan Patel knows that batters are always on the lookout for the googly. They expect it and watch closely for any tell-tell signs. So, he maintains the same grip is the same. He also ensures that his run-up and delivery action are consistent. The difference is that the leggy is released from a normal position, while the wrong’un comes from the back of the hand. It all happens at the last possible moment.

Prenelan Subrayen was expecting the googly. He also knew that Patel knew that he was expecting it. But, the Dolphins batters were struggling to read Patel’s wrong’un, so it made sense for him to welcome the new man at the new man at the crease with it. Subrayen had seen where the wicket-taking ball had pitched. So, he premeditated a shot. He was going to slog Patel over the midwicket boundary. The Dolphins bowling all-rounder danced to the pitch of the ball and swung hard.

Subrayen was right. It was the googly. What he hadn’t anticipated was how much spin Patel could get off that surface. The ball turned sharply and cannoned onto the stumps. Patel had two wickets in two balls. He finished the match with 3/17. All three fell to his wrong’un.

Patel’s control of his leggies and his command of the googly made it difficult that he had only been bowling both for about five years. It also hid the fact that he was self-taught.

South Africa’s first ever Test victory was delivered by the googly. It was known as the Bosie back then. Reggie Schwarz, who began his career as a batter, was the vehicle. He learned the delivery from Bernard Bosanquet, who discovered that he could bowl leg spin deliveries both ways while mucking around with the ball on a table. Hence the name, the Bosie. Bosanquet taught the delivery to Schwarz, his Middlesex teammate.

Schwarz loved his friend’s new invention so much that he learned, refined, and adopted the delivery as his stock ball with great success. He was also the googly’s biggest evangelist. One of the first things he did when he returned to South Africa was to teach it to three of his Transvaal team-mates: Bert Vogler, Aubrey Faulkner and Gordon White.

The quartet turned Transvaal into a powerhouse and spun South Africa to their first ever Test win against England at the Wanderers in 1905-06. The leggies claimed 14 of the 20 England wickets that fell in the Test.

Like Schwarz, Patel rated his batting highly. He spent countless afternoons channeling his inner Virat Kohli or embodying Hashim Amla’s calmness at the crease.

“I grew up watching a lot of cricket, and trying to copy different players in the backyard. After watching a game on TV, the next day in the street everyone suddenly changed their batting stance or bowling action trying to be their favourite player. That was the culture around us,” Patel reflected.

In Page View, you make your own fun, and while reading cricket history was on the menu for him and his friends, no one considered it fun. They all preferred to play the cricket over reading about it. Patel and his friends wheeled out stools, dustbins, and anything they could convert into stumps on Ring Road.

Cricket on the street placed less emphasis on technical correctness and demanded adaptability. Houses on either side restricted shot options. Balls that flew into the yards resulted in a dismissal. Sometimes that was the end of the game because some residents held on to the ball.

Boundaries were only available to balls hit back over the bowler’s head and ramps behind the keeper. If the balls were not straight enough, there were drains to worry about. The balls that rolled into the drains were irretrievable. The flow of traffic meant quick disassembling and dispersion to allow vehicles to pass, and the presence of mind to regroup and pick up from where they left off as if nothing happened.

This was Patel’s cricketing foundation. The schools he attended, Sama Primary and Johannesburg Muslim School, did not offer any sports. The closest he got to proper instruction was watching international cricket on TV and re-enacting what he saw. That changed when he joined Marks Parks CC. The club introduced him to organised cricket.

“His father dropped him early in the morning on his way to work. Zakwan was a quiet boy, but was always ready and willing to do stuff,” Yasin Manack, the Marks Park manager at the time, revealed.

The team trained Patel once a week and played on Saturdays. Those were Patel’s favourite days of the week. He lived for those two days. As the years progressed, Patel didn’t just go to Marks Park on training and match days, he would even show up on other days to work on his game.

Patel was a batting all-rounder on Ring Road. At Marks Park, his batting developed positively and he was named the Batter of the Year in the u15 year. His bowling wasn’t on the same level as his batting. He delivered one too many bad balls. His combined skills would have made him nothing more than a decent club cricketer.

“If you asked matric Zakwan if he was going to be a cricketer in a few years time, he probably would have said no. I didn’t ever take cricket seriously till I was playing in Uni. It was just for fun till then, for the love of the game. Didn’t ever think of it as a professional career,” Patel revealed.

“Don’t leave the nets until you are happy with your bowling,” Shane Warne said in a 2013 leg spin bowling masterclass.

Patel heard that line almost everyday. He didn’t bother to close the YouTube tab that had the masterclass. It was one of a handful of videos that he played over and over again. Patel watched the videos with a ball in hand, mimicking the wrist positions right and the way the ball was meant to come out of the fingers.

Afterwards, he retreated to the backyard, where he put what he had focused on into practice with a tennis ball. Those sessions were for him to get the mechanics right. In time, he added other drills. There is one where he sat on the floor, legs straight, and used the upper body to bowl.

Marks Park was a bit of a distance away, so Patel did most of his training at home. When he was at the club, he did static bowling at cones for hours. He also tied strings in the nets to give himself height guidelines. He bowled under or over them. He also had a friend who was happy to face deliveries for two hours.

“The main thing was repetition. Just bowling more and more. At club trainings, I had some senior guys that played at a higher level, so I used to enjoy the challenge of bowling to them, and then learning from what they had to say,” Patel reflected.

Manack, who knew the pre-Covid, pre-lockdown, version of Patel, couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Patel the leg spinner.

“He was a natural. Leg spin bowling is a tough art. You either have it in you or you don’t. Zakwan had it. He just needed people to back him,” said Manack, who backed him at Marks Park.

Manack spoke about him to people, one of whom was Siya Sibiya, the University of Joburg coach. Sibiya didn’t have to go searching for Patel because the spinner turned up for one of UJ’s practice sessions after being invited by a friend. He liked what he saw and Patel became one of the first few players who earned scholarships under Sibiya. As he did for Marks Park, he won UJ a few games.

Word of his success reached the Lions, who in turn invited Patel to train with their academy.

“I learned a lot under coach Siya at UJ. I am also grateful for coach Kurt and Nawab from bringing me into the Lions Academy space. They trusted me and backed me,” Patel said.

One of his favourite outings was a five-wicket haul he snared for the Lions Academy in a two-day game at the Wanderers. The Lions were getting carted around the park. The opposition’s opening batter had slashed his way to a century when Patel was brought on to bowl. The Lions needed a breakthrough, and Patel delivered it in his first over, with the opener’s dismissal.

The first wicket was the first domino, the rest followed suit. He struck again when a batter tried to lap Patel’s delivery. He misread the length and was bowled. Patel trapped the third batter lbw with one that skidded through. The fourth wicket was a caught and bowled, and the fifth was an lbw courtesy of a googly. Patel finished the match with 5/25 in five overs.

None of his five victims could read his variations. They knew that Zakwan had a googly. They expected it and looked for tell-tell signs in his grip. They didn’t pick anything up because it the key was in the wrists.

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Tiaan Brits: Unstoppable

C. S Chiwanza — Fri, 22 May 2026 07:02:13 GMT

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Tiaan Brits rediscovered his love for cricket in a cold and damp place. It didn’t look like that at the beginning, though.

His first call back home after settling in wasn’t filled with optimism and excitement. It was loaded with worry and uncertainty. His digs, a small caravan on the field next to the changing rooms, was a far cry from his parents’ home in Krugersdorp. The placement of the caravan was strategic, Brits cooked and showered in the changing room.

Brits grew up in an Afrikaans speaking home and attended schools where Afrikaans is the medium of communication. His English was so bad that he used Google Translate to get by in his first few days. The weather didn’t help. His first two months there were the coldest he had ever experienced. Temperatures hovered in the low teens and the occasional showers did not help.

“I have never experienced anything like that. I remember playing one of my first games wearing a long-sleeve skin, a long-sleeve playing shirt, and then two long-sleeved pullovers on top. I was freezing my ass off. It was so cold,” he shared.

Most South African youngsters travel to the UK in the South African winter to hone their skills in different conditions as part of their preparation for the next step: going into professional cricket. That wasn’t the case for Brits. The trip to Strathmore, Scotland, came at a time when Brits was uncertain about his future in the game.

Brits’ Grade 3 teacher didn’t think his career choice cute or practical. She told him that he needed to reconsider because being a professional cricketer was not a real job. Sports lore is filled with tales of athletes who used negative feedback as fuel in their careers. Brits didn’t make it his life’s mission to disprove his teacher. He simply didn’t pay attention to her.

His teacher’s views might have been influenced by the fact that Laerskool Millennium did not play much cricket. Their matches were more of an exhibitional nature, rather than competitive. In his Grade 7 year, Brits played a grand total of six matches. He was unbeaten in five of the those matches.

Things picked up when he got to Noordheuwel for his high school education. More matches meant increased opportunities for him to express himself with the bat. Brits went wild from 2015 to 2018. He reeled off 5555 runs in four years, before adding another 830 runs in his matric year.

“He was the first player in Noordheuwel’s history to score 1000-plus runs in a calendar year consecutively for four years,” Etienne Janse van Rensburg, the Noordheuwel Director of Cricket, shared.

His most prolific year was his Grade 10 season. He scored 1661 runs. His best work that season was an unbeaten 302 from 127 balls. He could have pushed on to see how far he could go, but Brits retired after the 43rd over.

It is possible that he might have gone up to 350 or more because the opposition, for some inexplicable reason, kept trying to cow him with the short ball. The problem was that Brits is strong on the hook and pull. They fed his strengths and he feasted. Of the 16 sixes he launched, a few of them landed in the church yard across the street.

“At one point, a few of my teammates went to stand by the church just to throw the ball back because I kept hitting it there into the church,” Brits recalled.

The best moment for Brits and his family was watching his aunt finding out that her nephew was the reason why she kept helping the boys retrieve cricket balls from the church instead of doing what she had gone to do. At one point, she had suggested to Brits’ teammates that one of his sixes should have been declared a 10 because it had gone further than others.

“The 302 is, to this day, a school record at Hoërskool Noordheuwel for the highest individual score,” Janse van Rensburg said.

Brits was on track to eclipse his 2017 run tally in 2019, his Matric year. Unfortunately, he had a truncated season, thanks to exam preparations and the exams themselves. He ended the season with just over 800 runs. It was enough to earn him an invitation to the Lions u19 trials.

Brits’ success at Noordheuwel was a means to an end. It paved the way into the Gauteng West age group teams, which opened the doors for him to be noticed for the Lions representative sides. After making the Lions u17A side, the next logical step was the Lions u19 side for the Khaya Majola Week, which set him up for the SA u19 and Lions Academy sides. That’s not what happened. He wasn’t selected for the Lions u19 team.

“I was heart broken by not making the u19 team. I struggled a lot with that, and when Covid hit in 2020, my head spiraled a bit. At one point, I decided to stop playing cricket completely and started playing golf more seriously,” Brits revealed.

He only picked up a bat towards the end of 2021 and the start of 2022. However, the comeback wasn’t a revival of the dream to pursue professional cricket. It remained shelved. Brits was playing cricket as a hobby. Five months later, he was on the plane to Scotland for a season with Strathmore CC, thanks to Andre Botha, his coach at Khosa CC.

The Strathmore community’s embrace helped to thaw Brits’ attitude towards his new environment. The batter, who survived on sweet stuff in his first four days in Scotland, was not short of dinner invitations. Most importantly, he learned his way around the kitchen and was soon whipping up half-decent meals for himself.

Brits immersed himself into the Strathmore way of life. He did a lot of sightseeing and learned a lot about their people and how they do things. He embraced their culture and cuisine. Brits helped with the general upkeep of his surroundings. He painted the fences around the field and did grass cutting work. He also helped with coaching the juniors.

The healthy cricket-life balance helped Brits to recapture the brilliance he showed for Noordheuwel years earlier. He crossed the 50-run mark 13 times. He scored five hundreds and added eight 50s. He ended up with 1006 runs in 15 innings for an average of 91.4. His most memorable innings was an unbeaten 133 from 58 balls in a T20 against Forforshire CC.

“That amazing season in Scotland reflamed my love for cricket and that led me to where I am now,” Brits shared.

He returned to a successful first half of the Premier League A season for Khosa. Brits scored 1056 runs in 22 games for an average of 62.12 in his barnstorming season. He showed his ability to bat long with a double century in a time cricket game. Impressed by his performances, Kurt Human, the Lions academy head coach, contacted to Brits for a chat about his plans and cricket future.

The conversation ended with an invitation to the academy training group. Brits also featured in three academy games. He debuted with a 78-ball 98 from 78 against University of Johannesburg, followed that up with 167 off 153 against North West Academy before scoring 10 runs in his third outing.

“I enjoyed Scotland so much that I went back for a second year the after my first shot in the academy. I experienced a different environment with a different team but the awesome people never changed,” Brits shared.

The highlight of his second sojourn was a pair of two 150-plus scores in 50-over cricket. One was a 137-ball 183 and an unbeaten 171 from 136 balls for Meigle. Unfortunately, in the second match, Richie Berrington, the Scottish international captain, upstaged him with a ton of his own to lead Clydesdale to victory. And just when he thought things couldn’t get better, the Lions reached out offering him an academy contract.

The Dukes ball moves prodigiously in Scottish conditions compared to the Kookaburra in South African conditions. Brits’ two seasons there helped him to develop skills to counter the moving ball. He also learned how to play with the pink ball.

“The wickets were a touch slower and more spongy. I had to wait longer and play later,” Brits revealed.

By nature, Brits is an attacking opener and sometimes a number three batter who pushes the game forward. The new skills made him a more well-rounded player than he would have been had he not flown to Strathmore and Meigle. That showed in his performances for the Academy and Colts sides over the next two seasons.

Brits topped the runs charts with averages of 50.5 and 73.1 in 2023-24 and 2024-25. It was a no-brainer that took home the Lions Academy/Colts Player of the Year and Batter of the Year awards in both seasons. He also added the Best 50-Over Batter in club cricket award for the 2024-25 season to his collection of accolades.

There is no doubt that Brits is firmly on track to the career he dreamt of as a Grade 3 student. There is no telling how far he will go. Sometimes, all one needs is a different place, different scenery, to inspire and aid in growth, even if that place is cold and damp.

Understanding Dewald

C. S Chiwanza — Tue, 19 May 2026 10:01:01 GMT

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There was a bit if a tug-of-war. Yolanda Brevis on one end, Dewald and Reinardt on the other. Early into the summer, Yolanda would sprinkle soil on her lawn to help it thrive. As soon as it became green and lush, Dewald and Reinardt would cover a 5-metre strip with plastic, to kill the grass.

The strip was the batter’s end. Behind the stumps, they put a table that acted as the wicketkeeper. If you knicked the ball and it touched the table, you were caught out by the keeper. The flowers and little bushes were fielders. A couple of times the windows were co-opted into fielding. That drove Yolanda to ban the use of hard balls on this pitch.

Yolanda Brevis was not amused. Her boys seemed not to understand how their enterprise made the backyard look with that five-metre patch of dead grass. The bald patch was unsightly. Her bemusement lost the battle to the boys’ excitement for cricket.

Every summer the boys diligently worked on their little pitch. Their mother got over it quickly anyway, there was no reason to stop. They hardened the pitch by rolling a weighted drum over it.

“We made it nice and hard like a pitch. We would also ask the gardening service people that they cut the grass extra, extra short so that it can almost be like a pitch. Our mother was never happy about us killing her grass,” Reinardt told me.

This is the story that started my journey with Dewald Brevis. It’s been four or five years since I learned that story and shared it. It always reminds me that one of the things that help in understanding Dewald is appreciating Reinardt’s role in his journey.

A few years ago, I was doing a piece on Simon Harmer. I had a virtual sit down with the spinner. He was in New Zealand, and I was in Johannesburg. I had all the time in the world, but he only had an hour. He had training, team meetings, and other commitments. I had an article on him to write. Just before we wrapped up the chat, he sent me his brother’s number.

Matt Harmer, or Dr Matthew Harmer, was an invaluable resource. He shared a treasure trove of memories that helped me to understand Simon Harmer much better than I would have done if I only had my interview with the spinner.

As an older brother, Matt helped to sharpen Simon’s competitive edge because he gave the spinner a target to chase. Matt was his first and constant opponent. Simon observed, imitated and then sought to outplay Matt. That’s how he got into cricket, and that’s also how he got into tennis. The older Harmer played both sports.

Simon’s drive to outdo Matt is not an isolated case. According to a study, Sibling Dynamics and Sport Expertise, younger siblings show a ‘greater commitment’ because they want to be better than their older siblings. Tim Wigmore and Mark Williams drew the same conclusions in their book, The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made.

One of my favourite stories about Dewald is not from cricket. He was a keen rugby player from an early age. When he was nine, Dewald made his mind up that he wanted to play at number nine or 10 and put his name up for both positions at his school. His coach felt he had better options at both scrum half and fly half. But, Dewald was determined.

He worked his ass off to improve in both positions. However, the results weren’t immediate. It took him a couple of years to get to where he wanted. Dewald’s improvements were so vast that he played scrum half for the Blue Bulls’ u12 and u13 years. He was also the place kicker in his u13 Blue Bulls year.

In their book, Option B, Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg highlight that resilience is not a trait one is born with, but rather, a muscle that one has to develop and strengthen. Dewald’s early years of playing up against Reinardt and against Reinardt and his friends helped to develop that muscle early.

Another benefit of playing up is that older siblings force the development of more advanced skills at a younger age in order to keep up with their older teammates, as Wigmore and Williams wrote.

Off the field, Matt and Simon were best friends. Similarly, while Dewald was determined to outplay Reinardt on their backyard strip, off it, they were best mates. It was all for one and one for all. They did everything they could to make each other better. The brothers shared a dream of taking over the cricket world together one day.

Reinardt with his pace bowling and Dewald with his batting. They watched countless hours of of recorded footage and live games before going to their backyard strip to re-enact what they have watched. Reinardt ‘discovered’ a wonderful club with great people and a great environment.

He talked Dewald into joining him there. It was one of the best decisions the brothers made. Laudium Cricket Club provided a solid base for the boys to hone their skills. Unfortunately, Reinardt suffered a back injury that all but ended his fledgling career.

However, that didn’t end his love for the game or his devotion to his brother’s cricket. Reinardt went off to university, studied for his LLB Law Degree and is now doing with his articles. He attends as many of Dewald’s matches as his schedule allows him.

When they were younger, Dewald listened to Reinardt’s feedback on games and insights, he still does now. Reinardt is one of the few people whom Dewald knows has his back. He is one of Dewald’s safe habours. Like Matt Harmer, he is protective of his sibling.

I was thinking of all this while watching the Chennai Super Kings’ project on Dewald’s journey. Watch it when you get a moment.

Meet the Lenasia Lightning

C. S Chiwanza — Fri, 15 May 2026 10:00:57 GMT

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There is a saying about heroes, meetings, and disappointments. Rafeeq Patel is fortunate that his lived experience does not conform to it.

Patel used to miss school because of Hashim Amla. When South Africa toured Australia, Patel would wake up in the early hours to watch the Proteas legend bat and then go back to sleep after his innings was over. That meant that he missed school the next day, because he was too tired.

“I was starstruck when I first met him. I was still with the Lions Academy at the time. He’s such a humble, down-to-earth, soft spoken person. When he speaks you just want to listen and learn from whatever information you can get from him. He has a brilliant way of thinking about the game,” Patel shared.

1998 was one of Allan Donald’s best years in Test cricket, he claimed seven of his 20 five-wicket hauls in the format. That was also the year Patel was born. The pacer never got to watch the White Lightning in action but he knew of his accomplishments because of his family.

“When I asked my dad who was the best bowler he had ever watched, he always said it was Allan Donald. I grew up on stories from my dad about Allan Donald and how good and fast he was,” Patel shared.

There is a 98% chance Patel would never have worked with Amla and Donald if Covid had not happened. There is also a 98% chance that the only he would have met them was as a fan looking for an autograph after matches.

U19 cricket is a pivotal moment for any aspiring cricketer. Being selected for the SA u19 team puts you in the shop window for provincial sides, universities, and franchises on the T20 circuit. Playing at the Khaya Majola Week puts you in the running for the SA Schools team and the Cubs Week, all three are a great advertisement to universities and provincial teams.

Patel made none of those teams. In a different universe, he would have invested the time and money required to take the roundabout path to professional cricket. Patel and his family had neither. While heart-wrenching, the decision Patel made after leaving school was an easy one for him: his family needed money, so he joined the job market.

“I didn’t grow up in a wealthy family and after school I had to be bread winner. If there is anything that keeps me going in life, it is my family. They needed me to step up at point, so I did,” Patel revealed.

Patel knew that he wanted to be a cricketer from the day he executed one of the most ridiculous run-outs in his life. Mini cricket is often played on grounds without boundaries. To hit a four or six, one has to hit the ball as far as possible and leg it. That’s what happened in one match. Patel gave chase and took a shy at the stumps from a long way off.

“The ball hit the stumps and the school went crazy. Everyone ran up to me to congratulate and celebrate with me. That was quite a cool moment,” Patel recalled.

He worked towards that goal over the next 13 or so years. When he let go of it, Patel didn’t care what other job he landed as long as it put food on the table.

The first job he landed was as a call centre agent. It was a hard graft. It was the beginning of 12-hour shifts, five days a week. His shifts alternated between day and night each week. He had a monthly sales target of between 42 to 63 sales a month, which is not easy in a job where one could make numerous calls a day and fail to make a single sale.

One of the most difficult things for Patel was to watch the people he had played with and against in age group cricket carve careers in international and provincial cricket. They were living their shared dream. Patel maintained contact with the game by playing club cricket. However, he gave club cricket up 12 months later. It was all taking a toll on his body.

And despite being unhappy with sitting behind a desk in front of a screen with headsets on, speaking to clients, he consoled himself with the fact that he could provide for his family. Then Covid hit and the lockdown came into effect.

“Months later the company closed because it wasn’t doing well. I decided I was no longer doing this. I went home and told my dad that I wanted to pursue my dream,” Patel recalled.

Redowan understood his son’s love for cricket. He was probably the only person who knew the ins and outs of Patel’s game. Redowan coached Patel from the beginning to the time he walked away. He gave his son his blessing. The one piece of advice he gave Patel was that the pacer had nothing to lose but had to work harder then everyone else. That’s all Patel needed.

When he was young, Patel was known to make a brief stop at home after school before heading to the Lenasia CC for training. When he decided to give cricket another shot, he turned into his second home. About four or five months later, Ahmed Nawab, a coach with the Lions, took notice.

“He was in the nets, bowling by himself. It was easy to see that he could go far with a couple of tweaks. He was more advanced than the average club cricketer,” Nawab shared.

He invited Patel to the Lions Colts nets where they worked Patel’s alignment, energy at the crease, and a few other fundamentals. However, according to Nawab, most of their work with Patel was mental. Patel was making good progress before he fell ill and had to be hospitalised for two weeks.

“I kept thinking it was over again. But I couldn’t stop fighting. I told myself I will never give up no matter the obstacles in front of me,” Patel shared.

It wasn’t long before Patel was back and working on his game like a man hoping to recover lost time. He spent the mornings training with the Colts and Academy guys and then his afternoons honing his craft in the nets at Lenasia CC. Despite his progress in the nets, Patel had to wait close to four years before he made his Colts debut.

A year later, Hashim Amla was watching from the dugout, while Allan Donald gave a short speech before handing Patel his debut cap for the Lions in T20 cricket. He didn’t shoot out the lights and neither did he bowl badly on debut, and returned figures of 0/28. Patel put in a brilliant performance with the ball two games later. He troubled the North West Dragons and finished with two wickets for 26 runs in four overs.

When he was a youngster, in Grade 6, Patel’s school created and hosted a mini cricket World Cup tournament. Patel, who was the youngest in the team, opened the bowling and set the tone with the ball. He captured his first-ever hat-trick in the final to help his team clinch the title. It gave him an incredible feeling of joy and belonging. That’s how he felt after his performance against the Dragons.

“I have always wanted to play this level and I felt like I bowled well in that game. But, that wouldn’t have happened if the Lions and Coach Russell (Domingo), Nawab, Kurt Human, and others did not have faith in me. I am grateful to them and the Lions for giving me the opportunity and backing to be a professional cricketer,” Patel shared.

There is only one moment that comes close to rivaling the feelings he experienced after that match. He had a brief conversation with Donald. When he was growing up, Patel’s club cricket teammates used to call him Rawalpindi Express because of his pace. Then he became Lenasia Express when he was older.

“I asked Allan Donald, ‘What do you think of Lenasia Lightning?’ He said he loved it. So, now it’s Lenasia Lightning,” he revealed.

Lenasia Lightning is more than a name, it’s recognition of his abilities. It’s acceptance. It’s praise from a legend. It is all the things a young Rafeeq Patel would have loved to hear from their hero. It also everything the older Rafeeq Patel needed. Given a chance, Patel would love to be to others what Amla and Donald have been to him.

Jody Lawrence and the dream chasers

C. S Chiwanza — Wed, 13 May 2026 10:06:09 GMT

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Most South African captains turn to their spinners just before lunch. It’s a time honoured tradition. In the absence of frontline spinners, they throw the ball to part-timers. Kyle Verreynne persisted with pace and threw the ball to Jody Lawrence with two overs to go to the break. The 34-year-old was five overs into the 27 overs he bowled in the contest.

The Titans were rebuilding with Dewald Brevis and Lhuan-dre Pretorius, who were in the formative stage of their red ball careers. Brevis would go on to finish the season with the second-most runs, 573, for an average of 47.8 at a strike rate of 88.7. He also had two centuries and as many 50s.

Pretorius finished his season with 436 runs in seven innings for an average of 72.7 at a strike rate of 62.4. He had three centuries and a single 50. I share these stats to demonstrate that Western Province needed to dislodge one of the two wunderkinds, or both. They could take the game away from the visitors.

Lawrence delivered a wicket with his fifth delivery of the over. He got the ball to jag back and keep just low enough to go beneath Brevis’ bat to trap him lbw. Brevis had only scored 16 runs. But Lawrence couldn’t dislodge Pretorius, who made 103 runs in the innings.

In the second innings, Lawrence drew Pretorius into a drive with a delivery angling into the fifth stump line. Pretorius edged the ball and was caught in the slips. As he did in the first innings, Lawrence could only account for one of the two. He couldn’t account for Brevis, who made 99 runs.

Both dismissals were classy, befitting of an experienced campaigner. However, Lawrence was two months from his 35th birthday and only playing in his third first-class match. Brevis was 22 and appearing in his 18th first-class match, while Pretorius, who was making his debut in the format, had SA20, List A, and T20 experience.

Brevis and Pretorius will play a many more seasons of first-class cricket. Lawrence, who finished that match with 7/88, his career-best bowling figures in first-class cricket, played another two matches after that one. It is unlikely that he will play many more first-class matches. He might have another handful to go, though he is determined to go on until his body gives up.

When we looked at debut trends, we learned that Brevis and Pretorius belong to a group mostly inhabited by star first-class players. They all debut in their late teens. They have a je ne sais quoi, which forces teams to create space for them in starting XIs. Quality players, with the ability to carve successful international careers follow them with debuts in their early 20s.

As you approach the mid-20s you get the quality players who fell between the cracks and the late developers. They are mostly viewed as role players, journeymen, and international late bloomers. We can keep scaling the groups, classifying players until we get to the late-20, and none of those groups would account for guys like Lawrence, who made his debut at 34.

At 18, Pretorius’ age during that match, Lawrence was helping Western Province Cricket Club win matches. At 21, Brevis’ age, Lawrence was making his debut for University of Western Cape. Then he spent the next 15 years waiting for his opportunity in professional cricket.

The pacer belongs to a rare breed of athlete, the dream chasers.

Lawrence picked up a bat and ball when he was five because he loved the game. Dreams of a professional career lingered in the background, but those ambitions are difficult to nurture when you don’t get opportunities to showcase your talent in provincial representation for cricket as a youngster.

“When you look at where I come from and where I have ended up, it’s a journey that I wouldn’t have done without my parents. They have always been by my side through thick and thin. They have managed my career well and I am happy to make them proud parents with my achievements,” Lawrence revealed.

The seamer was never earmarked for greatness, in large part because he went to Vista Nova High, a school that competed in the LSEN league. Cricket, like any sport, operates on the Matthew Effect. Youngsters who are spotted early are helped on their way with enrollment at the top cricketing schools. They also get numerous opportunities to prove themselves.

Lawrence wasn’t one of the fortunate ones and the LSEN league is a few rungs down.

“There is a notion that just because someone went to a LSEN school they are not good enough. I put that aside and trained and played like a professional to achieve my professional status. During my school years, I went to the top and got Green and Gold (SA-LSEN),” he shared.

After school, he joined Wynburg Cricket Club for a season and did enough to catch the eye of the University of the Western Cape, who offered him a full sports bursary.

“That’s how it began. It was always my dream to play for Western Province and going to UWC was a step in that direction,” said Lawrence.

The paucity of scorecards recording Lawrence’s travels on the fringes of professional cricket doesn’t do his winding career justice. My resources could only unearth 13 out of the 100 matches he played for Durbanville CC from 2019 to 2026. There are another 43 matches for University of the Western Cape and Western Province Colts from 2011 to 2026. They do not encapsulate his 14-year wait.

However, those few matches provide a sneak peak into his abilities. Anyone who can take five wickets for 13 runs in 8.2 overs has something about them as a player. In another match, he claimed six wickets for eight runs in 8.1 overs. Then there was also the time he took four wickets for just five runs in 5.2 overs.

Lawrence wasn’t a cheat code, he was a demolition machine that lived on a good length. His ability to move the ball makes him a handful. The problem was that Western Province has an endless supply of pacers like him, medium-fast bowlers who rely less on pace and more on outwitting the batter and movement in the air and off the pitch.

No one disputed that he was too good for club cricket but the trouble was fitting him into the Western Province side. So, kept him in the Colts set-up. It’s easy to be dispirited and lose hope when all you do is carry drinks and only get game time with the Colts. But not if you are Jody Lawrence. Representing South Africa at the Universities tournament held in Kimberley in 2011 showed him how far he could go, and it also left him with a hankering for more success.

It also helped that despite playing in the lower leagues for most of his career, Lawrence has always identified as a professional athlete and carried himself as one on and off the field. Nothing says that louder than the fact that he has had that as his Instagram bio for as long as he has had that account.

“Playing premier league cricket kept me inspired and driven to pursue my dream,” said Lawrence.

However, Lawrence’s biggest sources of inspiration can be seen on his arms. He has two tattoos, one of a compass and the other of the Lion of Judah with a Cross. Lawrence has always known where he wanted to go with his career. Armed with a map in his head and a compass on his arm, time wasn’t an issue. He had all the time in the world to reach his destination.

“The tattoo gives me the direction that I need to follow my dreams. It also resembles my immediate family, so whenever I look at it I know they are supporting me through everything even though they are not watching all the time,” Lawrence shared.

The Lion of Judah with a Cross represents his two grandmothers and his closest uncle, who was like a dad to Lawrence. He was a constant source for life advice and was present at most of Lawrence’s club matches.

“It also represents me as a Lion the King of the Jungle when I play. It reminds me that I will do my best when needed to,” he added.

When I do a piece on talented youngsters, I know that for most of them, the Brevis-Pretorius path is their preferred one. They would also be content with an early to mid-20s debut. However, if things don’t work out, for one reason or another, and they are overlooked, how many of them have the ability to be dream chasers?

Beyond a Boundary is a reader-supported publication. It is powered by our Patrons and the generous coffee buyers. It’s been a little cold and the coffees from Patrick Cairns, Sean Jacobs, Divyansh Jain, and Karunya have gone a long way in keeping my fingers thawed.

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Remember the name: Hayden Bishop

C. S Chiwanza — Fri, 08 May 2026 09:01:31 GMT

Hayden Bishop is taking the scenic route to professional cricket. This article is brought to you by Beyond a Boundary’s generous patrons.

Hayden Bishop wanted to give up playing cricket. Not because he had fallen out of love with the game. Bishop fell in love with cricket before he understood the game. He favourite pastime as a toddler was hitting a ball, one-handed, with his plastic bat all over the house.

He became the 13th member of the Zululand Cricket Club as soon as he could walk. Bishop was a familiar sight on the side of the field, facing throwdowns from his father’s teammates. At the close of play, he was the first one in the change room for the fines meeting with a beer bottle filled with water.

“I was obsessed from day one. My dad never had a day off from the time I could bat properly. He would have to come home from work and the first thing I would make him do was throw me tennis balls which I would smash around for hours on end,” Bishop recalled.

The decision to give up wasn’t driven by a lack of time in the middle. Most batters have a high probability in the first 13 balls of the innings. Not Bishop. He is almost impossible to dislodge early on. Part of the reason for that was the way he learned how to play the game.

Backyard cricket is a tried and tested way to piss off neighbours and deplete goodwill. Balls cannoning into windows. Balls scaring lounging pets. The incessant noise pollution of bat on ball sounds. The older Bishop turned the garage into cricket nets for everyone’s peace of mind.

The version of the game Bishop and his friends played in the garage had a million ways to be dismissed and only a handful to stay in. They had bowled, lbws on anything striking the foot, and edges into the back net were also dismissals. You were out stumped if the you were still out your crease when the ball hit the back net. The list was endless.

“We were very strict and scoring runs only came off the back of either a four or a six. It was very serious and bowler friendly venue,” Bishop shared.

The runs were the issue. Not that he couldn’t get the ball off the square. If anything, Bishop was one of Kearsney College’s most consistent scorer, and he was only in Grade 10. He was averaging in the mid-50s. The issue was that he wasn’t scoring the runs he wanted. His run chart had a lot of 70s and 80s, but no 100s.

“He was despondent when he came to me. He said that he didn’t think he was good at this game because he couldn’t get to triple figures like other kids,” Gary, Bishop’s father, remembered.

Father and son discounted training power-hitting as a way to improve his batting because Bishop didn’t have the long levers; he was on the small side compared to his teammates. However, Bishop was good at running. The decision was to reduce dot balls by taking more singles. He nurdled good balls for singles, turned ones into twos and bad balls either landed in the stands or raced to the ropes.

Bishop started converting almost immediately. His best was an unbeaten 157 against Michaelhouse in his matric year. He ran out of balls to score from, while Michaelhouse, who batted second and were bowled out for 163, ran out of batters. He finished the season with 1428 runs at an average of 54.9 - a record tally in the history of Kearsney College cricket.

Later that year, Bishop outscored all the other batters at the Khaya Majola Week. He recorded a century and two fifties on his way to 263 runs for an average of 65,75. CSA awarded him the Batter of the Khaya Majola Week award for his efforts. Selectors also picked him for the SA Schools team, he was impossible to overlook.

In early 2024, Bishop scored back-to-back 121s at the Cubs Week. He made 121 from 129 balls against the Northerns Champions and 121 off 140 balls against the Eastern Warriors. He was combining his two superpowers, the ability to stay in and strike rotation. His stats helped to open the doors at Tuks.

Bishop didn’t need to hear people suggesting that he batted too slowly for the modern game. He watched the T20 revolution and noticed that he needed to expand his game. It was time for another chat with Gary, only this time, there was no questioning his ability.

“I was very good at staying in but my natural conservative approach held me back a bit from scoring quick enough. My dad and I sat down and had a chat,” he revealed.

For most players raised on first-class and 50-over cricket, increased boundary options means a lot of flailing arms and getting into uncomfortable positions in attempts at playing shots named after people or actions. Bishop’s first stop was the gym.

“I needed to get stronger because I’ve always been smaller than the rest,” Bishop said.

Now that he had added muscle, the next step was trying to hit every ball for six in the nets. It didn’t matter where it pitched, Bishop, just hit indiscriminately. It was his way of figuring out where to hit and what balls to take on. Bishop’s natural inclination is to let the ball come to him, in his new approach he focused more on going to fetching the ball to change the contact point. He preferred that to swinging harder and risk losing his shape.

Those changes came with tweaks to his technique, but the most important change he made was mental. The joys of batting in the nets is that one can be dismissed countless times without having to leave the crease. It helped him take the fear of going out away and helped him embrace playing with more freedom.

“At first it was about more power but recently it has become more of a thought process of getting more comfortable with moving around the crease and hitting those fancy/creative shots. Lately it’s been about being more effective with it and throwing the bowlers off there lines with movements and more creative shots rather than looking to just hit out to transfer pressure,” Bishop revealed.

Bishop finished the season with two centuries and five half-tons for a tally of 818 runs across all competitions for Tuks. He had the third highest average, 54.5, for Tuks. His contributions helped them on their way to a slew of titles; the Titans Premier League, the 50-over Super League, and the National Club Championship.

Like his namesake on the chess board, Bishop is moving in a diagonal manner. Sometimes a step at a time, at other moments two, three, five, or five steps. Always going upwards. Sometimes his path is blocked by another piece, but that doesn’t matter, Bishop keeps working, while bidding his time.

Beyond a Boundary is a reader-supported publication. It is powered by our Patrons and the generous coffee buyers. Shout out to Yashaar Mall, Rhyme001, Werner E, and Caz Bot for helping keep the lights on.

Keeping the lights on

C. S Chiwanza — Tue, 05 May 2026 07:53:58 GMT

I hate this part of the job, that’s why I try to avoid it as much as possible. But, it’s something that must be done.

I want to tell you little known background titbits about Donovan Ferreira or Dewald Brevis and I also want to tell you about an exciting youngster from Paarl. I want to tell you about the player who is playing varsity cricket while patiently waiting for his chance with the Colts and I want to tell tell you about the future stars.

I want to give you updates on players who went down to Division 2 to get more game time and I also want to tell you about the youngster who went directly from school cricket to Division 1. Cricket has prodigies and slow cookers. Each one has a story that should be told. I love doing that.

I love digging up those stories. I think that’s why most of you read Beyond a Boundary. I want to keep Beyond a Boundary going and growing for many years to come. However, it costs money to do so. I spend a lot of time chasing players, parents, siblings, coaches, teammates, and former teammates. All of them help with vital information.

This is work that requires time and money to execute. Both of which I could have if Beyond a Boundary was generating some sort of income. At the moment, it doesn’t. I take what I earn from other gigs and pour into this publication. With your help, we can try to balance the scales a little bit.

There are two ways that you can do this, you can either Buy Me A Coffee or Become a Patron. Readers who choose to Buy A Coffee often use it as a once off option, while those who choose to be Patrons donate a certain amount monthly. If you can afford it, please pick one of the two.

Big as a football

C. S Chiwanza — Mon, 04 May 2026 09:43:36 GMT

I have a ton of stories on Sohail Seonath. He is a talented young man and I will be writing a lot about him. Let me tell you one of my favourite stories about him:

“Massive, massive beach ball. That’s what he sees.”

“A watermelon at times, and somehow in slow motion.”

“It would be nice to face an over in his shoes and see how slowly or big the ball looked.”

Those were the responses from Usman Khawaja, Pat Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood when they were asked how well they thought Steve Smith was seeing the ball after the 2019 Ashes.

They also could have been Sohail Seonath’s unbeaten 302. One opposition player’s memory of that game is of endlessly retrieving the ball from the boundary. They did so 54 times. Seonath, who put on a display of stroke play, struck 45 fours and nine sixes. Four number 45 came off the last delivery he faced.

“When I was on 298, the whole stand, it was full of parents and my school mates, was chanting my name. I played a square cut off the last ball of the 48th over, and it ran to the boundary. The whole stand erupted with cheer and joy,” Seonath recalled.

That was the last delivery he faced. He wasn’t dismissed, his partner just hogged the strike in the last two overs. Like Smith, Seonath was seeing the ball like a beach ball, or more appropriately, like a soccer ball. That’s how he learned the game. Manoj, his father, ‘bowled’ a soccer ball to him and the toddling Seonath would swing at it.

“He hit more than he missed. But what was most impressive about him was that he somehow understood that he was supposed to put the leg forward for the full length and go back for the short ones,” Manoj revealed.