There is magic in Nqaba Peter’s wrist, but for now he just wants to ‘play free’

Nqaba Peter came to leg-spin by accident, the “accident” being he was watching cricket on TV — he thinks the Ashes were on — and saw Shane Warne. “To me it looked like: ‘when you bowl like this, you get wickets,’” he said.

“I just started messing around in the yard, so then I did it in the nets.” Those nets were at George Randell Primary School in East London. “I started off as a seamer. I was still in primary school. I was fooling around in the nets bowling some leg-spin, then my coach saw me and went ‘if you are going to fool around at my practice, then you go bowl this [leg-spin] this weekend.’ So I did. Fortune favoured me in that game, I think I got 6/12... and I stuck with leg-spin from then.”

For whatever reason — maybe Paul Harris was a bigger influencer than anyone imagined — South African cricket has found itself over-run with left-arm orthodox spinners. Every provincial team seemingly has one (at least) and the country’s best and most consistent tweaker, Keshav Maharaj, is one too. 

So bowling wrist-spin as Peter does, having started out by just messing around in the nets, was always going to grab attention, particularly because the 21-year-old has such mesmerising control of line and length. 

He is on a high-performance contract with the Gauteng Lions and has grabbed the spotlight in a team packed with Proteas during the CSA T20 Challenge, for his ability to do something different. 

“I got calls from my [Lions] players when they were down in East London last year with the Proteas telling me, I had to sign this guy,” Lions CEO Jono Leaf-Wright said. “I’d never seen him. I spoke to Temba [Bavuma] and he said, I’ve got to get him, so I had [performance analyst] Prasanna Agoram, put together a video. I also spoke to Rassie [van der Dussen] and then we signed him. I signed this guy and I’d never seen him play.” 

Leaf-Wright admitted that all has worked out well. “We are getting calls now about him.” 

Peter stays in a flat across the road from the Wanderers, so can walk to the nets every day, where he enjoys working with a Lions coaching staff that includes Jimmy Kgamadi, the fielding coach, who also fooled around with leg-spin in his playing days. “The conversations are easier, he understands what I am doing because he also used to do it,” said Peter. 

The Lions’ enormous management staff doesn’t actually have a specialist spin bowling coach. But there is no shortage of expertise for Peter to call on. Russell Domingo’s many years with Bangladesh gave him some insights, Allan Donald’s travels around the world did the same, while Hashim Amla, the batting coach, faced some of the world’s best spinners during his stellar playing career. 

“He’s very big on always trying to learn something new, as much as you know what you are doing, always try something new that you can work on,” Peter said of the advice Amla has shared. 

“Obviously there are Proteas guys here, and even though they are batters, I get a lot of information from them in terms of how they feel about my bowling,” he explained about the other sources he has used to draw information from. 

Peter received a late call up to the Paarl Royals for this season’s SA20 after they’d agreed to let two of their players go back to the SA under-19 team for the World Cup, where he came into contact with Tabraiz Shamsi, who has proved to be an important adviser. 

I’ve got the googly, the slider and my stock leg-spinner, I’m still working on the one that drifts in. I'm still trying to learn my craft, I’m not trying to learn everything in a short space of time. I want to get to understand myself and then ‘catch on to these few things’.

—  Nqaba Peter

“There’s lots of hours behind closed doors when no-one is watching — that’s where I try to nail the small things like trying to hit the stumps. Shamsi helped me a lot to find my line and length, he’s very big on focusing on the simple stuff. That's what I’ve tried to do, locked down all my routines and I believe the rest will take care of itself.”

He’s taken 10 wickets in five matches in the T20 Challenge, including a four-wicket haul at Newlands, and not being a left-arm orthodox spinner already has many local circles focusing their attention on him.

“I want to keep things as simple as possible, but I’m also aware I want to ‘play free’, play with my variations, play with the slower ball, just play...

“I’ve got the googly, the slider and my stock leg-spinner, I’m still working on the one that drifts in. I'm still trying to learn my craft, I’m not trying to learn everything in a short space of time. I want to get to understand myself and then ‘catch on to these few things’.”

The Lions have encouraged that freedom, not wanting to burden a player with so much potential. “Walking into the changeroom for the first time, it felt surreal, these are guys I grew up watching on TV playing for the Proteas and now I’m sharing the same dressing room,” Peter said. 

“As time goes by, you start to look at yourself as someone who could potentially be up there, one day playing for the Proteas. As much as it is a very nice feeling, you feel, ‘listen, you are not as far as you think you are.’

“I know I have the right guys around me, and now it’s about me working hard — hopefully I will be rubbing shoulders with them in the Proteas dressing room.”