Nonkululeko Mlaba sets the tone as Proteas Women bounce back

Nonkululeko Mlaba: social media lover — check; stylist — check; tone-setter — err, check? 

In a Proteas team featuring Marizanne Kapp and Shabnim Ismail — the presumed tone-setters — it was Mlaba, cropped bleached hair-do and toothy grin, who started the process of repaying a boisterous Boland Park crowd for their relentless support on Monday night.

South Africa left Paarl as victors by 65 runs against a shell-shocked New Zealand, whose captain Sophie Devine was struggling to understand how her side had delivered two such dreadful back-to-back displays against Australia and then South Africa. 

For the home team the match provided a much-needed boost for their self-belief after their own horror showing in the tournament’s opening match against Sri Lanka at Newlands last Friday.

Despite a scrappy surface — being used for the second match in a row on Monday — South Africa’s total of 132/6 still looked shy of a good one. It should certainly have been more given the start, in which they scored 44 runs in the power play, something player of the match Chloe Tryon acknowledged. 

It demanded a good start with the ball, which is precisely what Mlaba delivered. She was handed the new ball, with South Africa having played close attention to England’s earlier success against Ireland when their three spinners shared eight wickets between them.

“She bowls a lot, tries to work on her game as much as she can, I love the fire that’s burning inside of her and I love the tone she sets with the ball,” Tryon said of Mlaba.

The pair hail from Durban so often work together with Tryon, taking particular pride in her mentoring role. “It’s really nice to see her blossoming in front of me,” said Tryon. 

Mlaba claimed a wicket with her fourth delivery, drawing Bernadine Bezuidenhout out of her crease and giving Sinalo Jaftha, who had an excellent evening with the gloves, the fifth stumping of her career. 

An even bigger blow followed at the start of her next over when she slid one through the defences of New Zealand’s best batter Suzie Bates, to leave the tourists on 7/2. She set off on a joyous ‘mini Tahir’ dragging Jaftha along with her, much to the delight of the delirious Paarl audience. 

Her third wicket, trapping Lea Tahuhu lbw, led to a slick dance move that would not have been out of place at Rihanna’s Superbowl show, by which point, the game was effectively done as a contest.

“She wants to be No 1,” Tryon said of her 22-year old teammate, who is currently the No 2-ranked bowler in the T20 format. 

What Mlaba’s performance does is help relieve some of the pressure on Kapp and Ismail. Often opposing teams might look to just see them off and attack the rest of the South African bowlers, but they will be hesitant to do that with the kind of form Mlaba is showing of late. 

There are still concerns about the batting. Tryon’s 40 and especially her sixth-wicket partnership of 47 with Nadine de Klerk were critical in getting South Africa to what appeared a par total.

“I just think we need to take a bit of responsibility, bat a bit longer and build partnerships. I still felt that the way some of us got out was silly.

“It’s small things, we have a quality batting line-up and it’s about making sure we put our heads down and work as hard as we can, especially towards the back end of the innings,” said Tryon.

Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.