A super woman: An imbokodo in the cricket field

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The phrase wathintabafazi, wathinimbokodo has come to represent women’s courage and strength in South Africa and Dane van Niekerk is one of the toughest women in a sporting environment where being a woman can be as difficult as being a woman in society.



Most teenage girls at 16 think about boys, watch television, go shopping, listen to music or dance and go on many social outings but Dane van Niekerk at 16 was already donning the green and gold.



At just 25, the Momentum Proteas captain in all formats is still young but she has played an awful lot of cricket, featuring in 153 matches for her country and approaching a decade in international cricket.



She has never looked back ever since making her Proteas debut in 2009 against the West Indies and today, she is regarded as one of the best all-rounders in the world. When she was asked to replace Mignon du Preez who stepped down as captain in 2016, the shy introverted van Niekerk fine-tuned into a warrior, fiery leader who is highly rated and vocally embraced the challenge.



One could even think the woman, who stepped into the big shoes of du Preez is caught by the same spirits that the charismatic boxing great Muhammad Ali possessed:- A confident leader with a calm demeanor. From quite a young age, van Niekerk was determined to make it big. Dedicated to the game, she completed matric through homeschooling.



Just like her ideal sandwich, her approach to the game is plain white bread with just butter and biltong. Superwoman? Record breaker? No matter what superlative you give, van Niekerk will always be her humourous self and remain humble and at times downplay her achievements. She is never satisfied with her performances, no matter how well you think she played.



She has the ability to turn the ball a mile. This was evident when in the third game of the 2017 World Cup against West Indies, she did the unthinkable; becoming first ever bowler (in either men's or women's cricket) to take four wickets in international cricket history without conceding a single run. She returned figures of 3.2-3-0-4 with the ball.



The passionate leader is a tough cookie, who is just a confident warrior well equipped to fight her opponents. She's a top choice for teams in domestic T-20 leagues. Playing in the boys’ Eastern province academy earlier in her career has made her front up to challenges. Her ability to switch gears is unparallel in the modern day. From batting in the middle order in one day cricket to opening the batting in T20, she might generally be a stroke player but she does up the tempo and hit a long ball when required.



When the Proteas went down crashing in a humdinger against England in the s/f of World Cup 2017, she couldn’t hold back the tears; tears of pride and disappointment. They cried together as a team. The Proteas players are as close as ever under van Niekerk, they understand and enjoy each other’s companies.



A woman with many achievements and records, van Niekerk can also braaivleis better than most men. You could call her a veteran, an important part of the South African team. She has been a part of 5 Women’s World T20s and 2 Women’s cricket World-cups (2013, 2017) already. Van Niekerk finished as the leading wicket-taker in the 2017 Women’s World Cup, claiming 15 wickets at an astounding average of 10 which really stood out. She became the first South African woman to take an international hat-trick, finishing with 5/28 in an ODI match against the West Indies.



Niekerk took another five-wicket haul in ODI against Pakistan in 2014. She is the first South African player to achieve two five-wicket hauls in ODIs. In 2014, while facing Pakistan in the World T20I, she scored 90* and made a 163 run partnership with Lizelle Lee, which is the second highest partnership in Women's T20I and the second highest individual score in T20I history by any South African women cricketer.



During the Women's Cricket World Cup Qualifiers in 2017, she became the 7th player to reach 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets in ODIs. She also became the first player to take 100 wickets in ODIs for South Africa and was also a part of the ICC Women's ODI Team of the Year.



She is indeed animbokodo, the face of South African women’s cricket, forever getting popular. When you strike her you strike a rock, you will be crushed.
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