The Mlaba-ri banger: How Nonkululeko Mlaba defied circumstance to become Protean spin mainstay

Nonkululeko Mlaba has come a long way from being a nervous 19-year-old finding her feet in international cricket, overcoming the shadows of socio-economic constraints to being a bright spin prospect for South Africa

Mlaba’s rise from the grassroots level to the National Academy and eventually the South African national women’s cricket team happened in the blink of an eye.  | Photo Credit: Sportzpics for BCCI

Nonkululeko Mlaba’s life looked very different five years ago. She was still coming through the ranks of age-group and club cricket, showing sparks of brilliance that could be fanned for the national team someday. 

Her rise from the grassroots level to the National Academy and eventually the South African national women’s cricket team happened in the blink of an eye. From the scenic locales of Durban where she sharpened much of her toolkit as a cricketer, she suddenly found herself on the plane to India, all set for her first rodeo in international cricket. 

September 24, 2019. Surat. Plenty of debutants in the fray. The Lalbhai Contractor Stadium was hosting its first ever international match. A 15-year-old Shafali Verma had been handed her maiden T20I cap, as was a 19-year-old Mlaba. 

“I knew how Indian people love cricket. Making my debut here in India, seeing a lot of people attending the game almost felt like a movie or a dream. I was so nervous. It was so loud that I couldn’t even hear my own teammates talking to me,” the left-arm spinner reminisces, while in the middle of yet another assignment in the subcontinent. 

That initiation was a hard one. She’d have to wait for five more months to finally manage her first international wicket, in a T20 World Cup no less, when she dismissed Thailand’s Sornnarin Tippoch in a game the Proteas won by a whopping 113 runs. 

Luck by chance

Mlaba hails from KwaMashu, a South African township (areas that were underdeveloped and racially segregated in the lead up to and during the apartheid era in the country). She then moved to Ntuzuma to stay with her uncle, aunt and cousins at the age of 13. 

As a teenager, Mlaba’s first passion was dancing, particularly the traditional dancing style of the region called Pantsula - a style that emerged from the townships as a form of commentary during the ages of social separation. However, in Ntuzuma, she found no one to really pursue this passion with. Dancing’s void allowed cricket to enter the room. 

Mlaba took up the sport as a way to kill time. She followed her brother and sisters to the local ground to watch them train. Eventually, she began going every day. Eventually, she found herself in Lindelani Cricket Club and she has not turned back since. 

“I didn’t go to a big school where I’d get to see people of other races. I went to school in the township. For me, as a township girl, to play cricket….starting out, cricket was more for white people. For me to get to where I am motivated a lot of people and helped them see that anything is possible,” Mlaba says. Her teammate Nondumiso Shangase has a similar story. 

Spinning away to success

Mlaba started out as a pacer, a story countless spinners will relate to world over. In her case, it wasn’t a lack of purchase or a certain paucity of ability that pushed her to the world of spin. It was a coach’s call at club level. 

“In my club, we only had one spinner and we also had one left-arm pacer. My coach decided to move me to spin so there would be a right-left spin combination. It wasn’t too hard. I had to fine-tune some technique but I naturally got the turn.”

But the pacer in you never dies. Speed still makes its way into her game every now and again. 

“I’m happy with spin,” she quips when asked if she misses life as a seam bowler. “When I asked one of my teammates who bowls pace, they’re always complaining. You have to run in. I feel like it’s a lot of work. Spin is also hard, it’s technically difficult. But now and then, I have this arm ball. It’s very fast because I used to bowl pace. I like using it from time to time and it’s faster than some of the pace bowlers in the squad.” 

“Sometimes, I feel that if I am bowling slower, if I don’t bowl it in the right spots, I get hit everywhere. So then I tend to stick to what I know. It’s not exactly quicker, but it’s flatter.” 

File | Nonkululeko Mlaba started off as a pace bowler before being asked to switch to spin by her club coach. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

Mlaba modelled her game on Imran Tahir starting out, a player and person she grew to be quite fond of as a mentor. Eventually, Keshav Maharaj also became one of her idols and is someone she turns to for advice even today. 

Taking the bull by its horns

Life has never been easy for Mlaba. She is a player with a natural ability to turn the ball who is now trying to make space in a world of flat T20 tracks. India, known for its spin-friendly tracks, would have been an opportunity leaving Mlaba licking her lips, as South African skipper Laura Wolvaardt put it ahead of their multi-format tour of the nation this year. But through the course of the ODIs in Bengaluru and the one-off Test in Chennai, the surfaces left Mlaba questioning her own abilities. 

“(Maharaj) told me Chennai is spin-friendly. I was very excited. But as soon as I started bowling, I was like, ‘No man, what’s going on? Am I not bowling the right lengths?’ Everything was off for me. If I bowled a bit into the spot, it was turning a lot and went wide. If I tried to get to the stump line, it wasn’t doing what I wanted either. It was very difficult.”

An opponent as strong as India, at home to boot, only made things twice as challenging, but Mlaba is always up for a fight. 

Mlaba has dismissed Smriti Mandhana twice in four India batting innings in this tour so far. | Photo Credit: K Murali Kumar

“I really like India (conditions and the team) because they really come hard at me. They really want to hit me hard. I just love that coz I just go like ‘Do it again.’ If they hit me for six, I’m just like, ‘Do it again.’I love the challenge that they give me. It’s nice for me as a bowler. I love T20 and to play against India, I know they come down hard on the bowlers especially the spinners. If you toss it up a bit, it’s gone. I feel like they make me grow a lot in my bowling.”

Ahead of what promises to be a fiercely contested T20I series against India, Mlaba is looking forward to her battles with Smriti Mandhana, whom she has dismissed a number of times in the past, including twice already in the current tour. 

“Even though the ball is turning into the left-handers, I somehow get wickets. I don’t know how. I love bowling to left-handers even though they challenge me a lot. I love challenges. I’ve gotten Mandhana a lot. Back home, during the tri-series, she was struggling. I know she’s going to come hard at me and might have done a lot of research to do that. I am waiting for that challenge.”

Mlaba enjoys encounters against the best in the world. Another instance is facing Suzie Bates in the T20 World Cup at home last year. Mlaba was crucial to South Africa’s 65-run where she took three wickets including getting Bates for a two-ball duck. Her dancing celebration went viral from that game and is understandably a core memory for the spinner in her still flourishing international career. 

“I was very angry with how I started in the first game against Sri Lanka. I kept thinking this is not my standard. After that, to play the second game at Paarl on a spin-friendly turf, I kept thinking, I had to get this right now. I am in my country, I am used to these conditions, I need to come up with something good.

“My friend and teammate Masabata Klaas came to me that morning and said, ‘If you don’t get this right, I am going to punch you in the face.’ Obviously, she was joking but it really pumped me up.

Noise made an appearance again, this time through the comments of critics on her social media accounts, something she quite guiltily admits she needs to stop. 

“Another thing that really made me perform that way was the comments online. I read a lot of comments online, I maybe shouldn’t be doing that as a professional. The more I read them, the more I grow as a person, because it just pisses me off.

“Most of the time, I just laugh at some of the comments I get. Even if something nasty is said about me. When I am playing, I always remember some of the negative comments. Maybe the person wasn’t trying to be mean, maybe they were trying to help me in some way, but I need to stop reading these comments,” she shrugs. 

Acing the last mile

South Africa made it to the final of that edition, pitted against Meg Lanning’s Australia in the final. In a maiden summit clash appearance against one of the most dominant sides in the game’s history, the Proteas folded. A similar story unfolded a little over a year later with the men against an Indian side in the Men’s T20 showpiece in Barbados. 

Mlaba believes the wounds have closed over and hopes that learning is the way to heal. 

“It was a bit overwhelming for us. We didn’t know how to do certain things in some situations. I think we should have been calmer. We were just rushing, we were trying to do so many things. We should have tried to take every ball one at a time.”

South Africa faced heartbreak at the hands of Australia in the T20 World Cup final at home in 2023 | Photo Credit: X/ICC

That final was not without its personal positives. For Mlaba, it gave her community an opportunity to step up for one of their own. 

“Funny part is, in my township, a lot of people know I play cricket. Mostly, it’s the older people who watch cricket. But when we made the final, I don’t know what happened. The people in my township put up a screen and were watching. They sent me the videos and it was so lovely. They supported us so much. I felt so good and I feel that’s inspired so many youngsters and teenagers.

In a few months’ time, another World Cup will see the Proteas head to Bangladesh for a chance to right the wrongs of 2023. It’s been a harder journey with the side in major transition after key retirements since the last edition. Mlaba is not the cherubic youngster waiting to make a mark. She’s the hardened professional now expected to lead. She knows pressure and the nerves are okay. She’s always gotten past them and she’s not quite done dancing to her own beat just yet. 

DID YOU KNOW:

She enjoys bowling to Laura Wolvaardt in the nets, fondly remembering calling her captain ‘loser’ if she manages to beat her. Wolvaardt, Mlaba admits, is happy to answer her in kind. 

Mlaba is a player whose life has transformed since taking up cricket. She has revealed that her career has helped her fix her family home and even afford better housing that’s close to cricket facilities

She pursues several interests outside cricket, one of which is an interest in studying sports management to widen her avenues after her time as an active cricketer