15 of South Africa’s best.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
WHO are the women flying South Africa’s flag at the World Cup? These are their potted biographies:
Suné Luus (captain)
Dané van Niekerk’s slippery pool deck — on which she fractured her ankle less than a month before the start of the 2022 World Cup — was Luus’ gain going into the tournament. She took over the captaincy, a job she had done in 20 previous ODIs, to keep the leadership in the hands of a leg-spinning allrounder. Luus became, in May 2017, at 21 years and 124 days, the second youngest South African and the ninth youngest woman overall to captain a national team in an ODI.
In 2016, Luus equalled the 37 wickets West Indian Anisa Mohammed took in 2011 as the world record for the most claimed in ODIs in a calendar year. Luus scored 52 and took 6/36 to become the second woman after England’s Heather Knight to make a half-century and claim a five-wicket-haul in the same ODI. When she took 6/45 against New Zealand in January 2020, she was the first woman to have two six-fers to her name. A year later, Luus became the 10th player to score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets in ODIs.
Tazmin Brits
Tazmin Brits never planned to have a cricket career. Instead, she thought she was bound for Olympic glory. She was the junior world javelin champion in 2007 and fixed her eyes on the prize of the 2012 London Games so firmly she had the five interlocking circles of the Olympic symbol tattooed onto the inside of her right biceps. But fate had other ideas, and in November 2011 a car crash ended her athletics ambitions. More than seven years later, in May 2018, having come back from much physical, mental and emotional pain, Brits made her South Africa debut in a T20I.
Although she was without a half-century after seven ODIs heading into the 2022 World Cup, she had reached 50 three times in her 20 T20Is. That suggests a big hitter, and Brits can certainly wield the big stick when that’s needed. But she is also blessed with the ability to work the ball around the ground for ones and twos.
Trisha Chetty
As the oldest player in South Africa’s 2022 World Cup squad, Trisha Chetty is also among the most accomplished. She holds the world record for dismissals in ODIs with 165 and is the second-most capped wicketkeeper in the format after England’s Sarah Taylor. In October 2010 Chetty shared an opening stand of 170 with Shandré Fritz, then the highest partnership for any wicket in T20Is. Chetty is one of six members of South Africa’s 2022 World Cup squad to have played Test cricket.
A genuinely quick-handed stumper, Chetty is also a legitimate middle order threat having scored 16 ODI half-centuries going into the 2022 World Cup. But her most recent foray into that territory was in May 2017. Part of the reason for that is the success of the women batting above her: she wasn’t required to bat in seven of her last dozen ODIs before the World Cup.
Mignon du Preez
Although three members of South Africa’s 2022 World Cup squad are older than Mignon du Preez, she was in many ways the senior pro in the side as their most capped ODI and T20I player. Having assumed the captaincy in October 2011, she led the side in one Test, 46 ODIs and 50 T20Is before relinquishing the leadership in June 2016 in order to focus on her batting. It was with her at the helm that women’s cricket began to be taken more seriously in South Africa, hence her favoured status among players and the public.
That Du Preez had a bright future in the game was apparent as a 12-year-old, when she hit 16 sixes and 25 fours and scored 258 in an under-13 inter-provincial match. She scored 55 on ODI debut, in January 2007, and in August 2007 she and Johmari Logtenberg put on an unbroken 224 for the fourth wicket, then the second-highest stand in all women’s ODIs.
Lara Goodall
Few batters have been as eager to put risk quite as far above reward on their list of priorities as Lara Goodall. When she is at the crease, stop what you’re doing and watch. You may not be detained for long, or you may be there for a while. But you will not be bored. Goodall has no qualms about hitting the ball in the air, setting off on singles that may or may not be there, and pulling ever more inventive strokes out of her kitbag.
Those attributes would scare off the more conservative kind of coach. Happily, Hilton Moreeng has not been among them. He was instrumental in Goodall’s return to the national squad in January last year after an absence of 15 months. She also didn’t play for South Africa between January 2017 and February 2019. The reward was Goodall’s scores of 49 and 59 not out in a series of five ODIs in India in March 2021. The latter helped clinch the series.
Shabnim Ismail
South Africa’s box office fast bowler, and among the quickest and most aggressive in all the game. And if you don’t believe that, ask Shabnim Ismail — she’ll confirm exactly that. Except that she will argue no-one is faster or more aggressive. Good luck winning that debate, not least because she has the facts to counter any dissent on the matter.
Ismail was South Africa’s all-time leading ODI wicket-taker going into the 2022 World Cup, and the fourth-highest overall. She also led the South Africa list in T20Is, and was third in the world in that format. She was named player of the match after the WBBL final in November 2020, when she took 2/12 to help Sydney Thunder beat Melbourne Stars by seven wickets. She is one of the half-dozen in the World Cup squad who have played Test cricket.
Unusually for female cricketers, who attract an unfair amount of criticism which often veers into abuse, particularly online, Ismail has been open about challenges she has overcome. Her Wikipedia page lists her suspension for an incident involving alcohol abuse in July 2014, and she has admitted to dealing with an obsessive compulsive disorder.
Sinalo Jafta
Picked in the 2022 World Cup squad along with stalwart wicketkeeper Trisha Chetty, Sinalo Jafta had played only 16 ODIs heading into the tournament despite making her debut in October 2016. But, as a gutsy grafter, she has quietly kept her name in the selectors’ plans with decent performances behind the stumps and with nuggety lower order batting.
Jafta was born into the game’s Eastern Cape heartland. But she came to cricket from hockey, in which she seemed to destined for a senior international career. Once she made the choice to focus on cricket, she figured she would be a bowler. Only when she was 16 did donning the stumper’s pads and gloves appeal as something she wanted to do.
Marizanne Kapp
A fast bowler’s fast bowler. A middle order batter’s middle order batter. A cricketer’s cricketer. Marizanne Kapp is the epitome of the modern player. Her performance in both disciplines has been central to South Africa’s success since she made her debut at the 2009 World Cup. That will not change in this year’s tournament.
Kapp’s searing seriousness, particularly when she is steaming towards the bowling crease, tall and imposing, a splendid splinter on the move, is a sight to behold. But stay out of her way if things don’t go according to plan. After South Africa went down by two wickets in an intensely competitive 2017 World Cup semi-final in Bristol, Kapp spent several minutes sitting silently on the outfield long after the rest of the players had left the scene. It probably didn’t ease the pain that she was named in the ICC’s ODI team of the year in 2017.
Kapp became the first South Africa player, and only the third woman, to take a hattrick in a T20I in September 2013. Also capped at Test level, she was third among South Africa’s all-time ODI wicket-takers and second on the T20I pecking order as the 2022 World Cup loomed. She was their fifth-highest runscorer in both formats. Among those above her in all of those categories was Dané van Niekerk, whom she married in July 2018. A former provincial athlete and netball player, Kapp has a degree in sports management.
Ayabonga Khaka
If Ayabonga Khaka is in the market for a nickname, she could do worse than call herself Black Ice. No bowler is cooler under pressure, and none seems able to execute their skills to such a high level as consistently. There is an unshakeable calm about the way she goes about her business, which tends to have a settling effect on the rest of the team.
She had conceded less than a run a ball in 63 of her 73 ODIs going into the 2022 World Cup, and claimed wickets in 51 of them. Khaka banked a career-best 5/26 in January, when she was named player of the series. She was seventh, two places behind Shabnim Ismail, in the ICC bowling rankings before the tournament. Although less explosive than South Africa’s regular new-ball pair of Marizanne Kapp and Ismail, Khaka’s team have come to rely on her for stability.
Masabata Klaas
If Masabata Klaas’ medium pace looks gentle and unthreatening, be especially careful. It is anything but — as she proved in May 2019 when she became the 10th woman to claim an ODI hattrick. Which isn’t to say Klaas is a firebrand, but her subtle skills are appreciated in a side not short of emphatic players. The irony is that her sporting role model is among the most emphatic performers to grace any arena: Serena Williams.
When Klaas first asked the boys at her primary school whether she could join their break-time game of cricket, they scoffed and told her to go away. She persisted and eventually the boys relented and tossed her the ball. That was the last time she had to beg her teammates for a bowl. Ninety-five international white-ball caps later, it’s more true than ever.
Lizelle Lee
Ms Dependable herself. And Ms Devastating. Leading up to the 2022 World Cup, Lizelle Lee had passed 50 in six of her last eight ODI innings. That hot streak included her third century in the format, 132 not out off 131 balls in March 2021. In a T20I in February 2020, she hammered 101 off 60 balls.
By then, she knew how to score big and quickly. In an under-19 one-day interprovincial game in December 2010, she piled up an outrageous 427 in a total of 690/1. She smashed an undefeated 169 off 84 balls in a senior inter-provincial match in October 2013. No-one has scored more ODI hundreds for South Africa, and her 26 half-centuries is also a record. Despite that, none of her international centuries have been scored at home.
Lee is a familiar face on the English and Australian short format circuits, one of the half-dozen current South Africa players who have won a Test cap, and among eight women from anywhere who have opened the batting, kept wicket and captained in the same ODI.
Nonkululeko Mlaba
Having made her T20I debut in September 2019 and played her first ODI in January 2021, Nonkululeko Mlaba — who was 21 going into the 2022 World Cup — is among the newer members of South Africa’s dressing room. But it did her chances of quickly becoming a key member of the attack no harm that, before the tournament, she conceded less than a run a ball in all four of the ODIs in which she had bowled all 10 of her overs.
By then, Mlaba had claimed only four wickets in her eight ODIS, but they were all prized: Pakistan’s Javeria Khan, India’s Deepti Sharma and Sushma Verma — in the same match — and West Indies’ Sheneta Grimmond.
Tumi Sekhukhune
You should know what you’re getting into when a player lists her role model as Shabnim Ismail, as Tumi Sekhukhune has done. At 24 heading into the 2022 World Cup, Sekhukhune hadn’t yet had the chance to live up to her hero’s exploits. But she was making her mark — in the 19 ODIs in which she had bowled, only twice had she gone for a run a ball or more.
Sekhukhune had never batted higher than No. 9 for South Africa in her 42 matches in both white-ball formats, and in her 139 matches all told she had taken guard only 56 times. But might there be an allrounder in there somewhere? In an under-19 inter-provincial one-day game in December 2016, she came in with her team in trouble at 40/4, shared a stand of 141, and finished not out on 63 off 124 balls. Then she took 1/2 as her team polished off the opposition for 32 in 14.3 overs. It was in a T20 at that level that Sekhukhune took her first five-for — a haul of 5/15 in an innings that included eight ducks.
Chloé Tryon
Going into the 2022 World Cup, just eight women from any country had made a higher score batting at No. 6 than Chloe Tryon’s 69-ball 79 in February 2017. Her 92 off 68 deliveries in August 2016 was the second-best effort by a No. 7. She hasn’t always scored that many runs, of course, but you can count on her for at least a few: not since February 2016, or 49 innings before the World Cup, had she been dismissed for a duck. Indeed, she had been removed without scoring only four times in her 69 ODI innings.
It’s that level of reliability that has made Tryon a familiar figure in South Africa’s middle order. Since her international debut, in a T20I in May 2010, she has played in the only Test the team have contested and in almost two thirds of all their white-ball fixtures. Little wonder she was made vice-captain for the 2022 World Cup.
Laura Wolvaardt
She was only 22 at the 2022 World Cup, but it was already a cliché that Laura Wolvaardt owned the most dazzling cover drive in all of cricket. It’s more a piece of jewellery than a stroke, a thing to be noticed and marvelled at. And appreciated for the beautiful confluence of bat, ball and perfect timing that it is.
But there’s a lot more to Wolvaardt than one gem of a shot. In August 2016, she scored 105 to become, at 17 years and 105 days, the second-youngest woman to celebrate an ODI century. That was in just her seventh innings in the format at that level, by which time she had also made two half-centuries. Going into the 2022 World Cup, she had made three centuries and 21 50s — equal with and second to Lizelle Lee in South Africa’s record books — to go with her three T20I half-centuries. No woman playing for South Africa has reached 1,000 or 2,000 runs faster in ODIs, and only Mignon du Preez, Lee and Trisha Chetty have scored more runs — and they have had between 68 and 26 more innings than Wolvaardt. Three of South Africa’s top 10 highest ODI innings belong to Wolvaardt. The only other player to appear on that list more than once is Lee, who is there twice. Wolvaardt had the highest all-time ODI average by a South African before the World Cup.
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