CHENNAI: In 2018, Dane van Niekerk was at the top of the world. Having led South Africa to the semifinal of the ODI World Cup the previous year, she was scoring runs for fun. Between that marquee event in England and February 2019, she averaged 60.20 with the bat, scoring 602 runs in 12 innings. It seemed like she could do no wrong.
Then, she suffered a stress fracture in February 2019 during the series against Sri Lanka. From thereon, the South African captain has been tormented by intermittent injuries and has been in and out of the side. When Van Niekerk returned to the side in the second half of 2021 — she led South Africa in the West Indies, played in The Hundred and the Women’s Big Bash League that followed — it seemed like she had put the ghosts of injuries behind her.
She was set to lead her country in the 2022 ODI World Cup. But the dreams came crashing down when an unfortunate slip up near the pool meant she fractured her ankle and was subsequently ruled out of the global event. Since then, she has been through rehab, watching South Africa miss out on yet another World Cup final, and having a tough time in England.
The South African skipper, who was racing against the clock to get fit for the Commonwealth Games at the time of this interview, could not make it to the squad in the end. Sune Luus — who has led the side in van Niekerk’s absence, and has done her part exceptionally well — will captain South Africa in the CWG without the services of both their premier all-rounders: van Niekerk and her wife Marizanne Kapp.
In a chat with this daily, the 29-year-old opened up about her struggles with the injury, time away from the game, prioritising mental health and her burning desire to play for South Africa again and more.
Excerpts:
The last few years have been really tough for you. How would you reflect on that?
It’s been quite a journey. They say tough situations make you grow as a person, but I think as a leader, I have been facing these situations, especially in the last two or three years. I started captaining my country in 2016-17, I haven’t captained the team as much as I would have liked in the last six or seven years. It gives me a lot of time to think about where I want to go not just as a captain, but as a cricketer.
But, you know life moves forward. Sune (Luus) has picked up massively and has done incredibly well as well. You have to give credit where it is due. You grow up a little as well, you don’t always get it right, I am not going to lie, when you are not in the best place mentally, you don’t always get it right. With all these experiences and learnings, hopefully, I can come back as a stronger leader.
How do you think you have evolved or changed as a person during this time?
I don't know, I might be wrong, but I don't think I've changed all that much. I've always been pretty much the same type of person. But, probably not in recent years. In the last couple of years, sitting on the sidelines, seeing the work that the team has done, not just skill-wise, but physically, you realize that you can't have that mentality as a decade ago. The game is not just moving forward, skill-wise, but physically as well, and if you don't stick with that and you don't keep up, you'll be found wanting. So, I think in that sense you kind of realize how important different aspects are, in and around the game that I might probably have taken for granted.
You could get away with a lot more natural talent in the past, but where we are now, it's definitely, yes, natural talent counts for something, but, the hard work behind the scenes, physically and mentally. Obviously, the skills make a massive difference and you can see the difference between the good and the greats just by watching the work ethics. So I think that's something I've learned and I'm still learning again. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, they say. So, I need to obviously make sure that I see in and around the team when it comes to the physical side of things as well.
And your wife, Kapp, is probably the best all-rounder in the world at the moment. How big an influence has she been on you?
Oh, yeah, I mean, she's the epitome of professionalism. And again, we've said many times how we are opposites. I kind of cruise through life and not probably make the best decisions all the time. She's very calculated, very soft-spoken and soft-hearted and so we're definitely the opposites. But I have to obviously give her massive credit for being in my life because she's pushed me sometimes when I don't want to. She's always been there for me and sometimes I don't understand why, but she sticks around and she keeps on pushing me. So, I definitely probably wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for her influence in my life as well.
You have said in the past that you can easily switch off from cricket. But has it been the same when you are injured and watching them from the sidelines as a captain?
I always said that I can switch off when I'm playing, I think it is easy for me to switch off because I'm actually physically there playing, where I can have an impact and an influence within the side. I am an instinctive captain and I always want to have a little bit of impact within the setup. I just realized, with the time away from the game, how I do not switch off.
It has been very difficult to watch the World Cup. Even though I've watched every single game, it was very difficult, I really struggled not being able to just play and contribute for that matter. The captaincy, I guess, is a different story, but just not being there and trying to make a difference when it comes to the result for the team was quite difficult.
So, I think I contradicted myself a little bit there. I don't think I switched off too much because I continuously think about the team. Wherever I am in the world, I really do think about them, probably at least 5-10 times a day. But, I think it just comes naturally. I really feel responsible for the team and the environment as well. It's been 13 years, I'm 29, that's almost half of my life. It's so much part of your life and your lifestyle and everything, so yeah, I do believe that yeah, for my own good and I realize that it's sometimes borderlines to be unhealthy as well.
And the injuries haven't helped you either...
Yeah, it's been difficult as I said. I mean, it started in 2019 with a very unexpected grade three stress fracture, and at that stage, I really felt like I was hitting a very good space, not just mentally and physically, but just my skills as well. I was scoring a lot of runs and I was really contributing to the winning environment within the team. I just felt like I thrived at that time and it halted me a little bit. That was one of my biggest injuries because it was close to nine months of recovery. And then just after that, coming back, playing one or two tours and tournaments and then getting a back injury, that was another three or four months and then I broke my ankle and that's six months. So yeah, it's just been mentally quite tough.
You know people sometimes don't realise what athletes go through mentally when they're sitting at home. As I mentioned, it's such a big part of our lives, it's every day that you train, you get up, you want to be the best cricketer that you can be first of all and best in the world. To not be able to do that and getting set back the whole time, we all are human. We react as humans as well sometimes and sometimes you know people take away that human element from athletes in any sport for that matter.
They sometimes don't realise that we are only human. We want to be there, we want to do well and we want to play cricket. We want to do what we love and when it gets taken away like that you, kind of, don't know how to deal with it. But having said that, I've got a great support system around me starting obviously with the CSA and my wife and my teammates have been massive support but yeah it's time for me to get back to just playing cricket again.
How do you cope with such tough situations and take care of your mental well-being?
Yeah, look, I've always been honest about it. I probably didn't deal with it as well as I should have at the start. I always thought I'm a strong leader and I don't need help. I won't break, I'm strong. I always thought of myself as a strong person, but with time I just realized that the things I did, and what I thought, it's probably not the healthiest way to go about dealing with it.
I've been working with a sports psychologist, Wesley Kew, for quite a while now, especially after my first injury, just to make sure that I keep those thoughts and feelings in check. He’s a former Eastern Province Rugby player, he played professional rugby as well. So he kind of understands the pressures of professional sport as well. But as I said, I definitely didn't make the best decisions and the right decisions and the way I went about it at the start. Because I thought that's the way that you deal with it. But identifying it and speaking to people you know and love, you can identify that you need help and it's not a weakness to say that you need help. Even if you get help, you're not always gonna get it right, but at least you're making the right decisions for your own mental health.
You have been out of the team for the better part of this year. How is your rehab process going?
Sometimes recovery processes don't go as you think. I always think it's at least two months shorter than the given time, that's just me being hopeful to get back. But, it being a lower limb injury — it's my front foot and bowling foot as well — we can't take any chances. And obviously, four-five months of not being able to do much cardio or even running for that matter, being in a moon boot, I couldn't have done much. So yeah, there're a lot of boxes I need to tick first to make sure that I am obviously 100 per cent not just for myself, but for the team.
I think that's the most important thing. You don't want to get there by being 70 per cent. I want to be for my team. I want to be a 100 per cent player and captain for them. So just making sure that I'm ticking all the boxes.
In the last year and a half, a lot of youngsters like Lara Goodall, Andrie Steyn have come up and done well for South Africa. How do you look at them stepping up and performing?
It's exciting to watch. At the end of the day, we all have our time. We can’t play cricket forever. We have always played the game to make sure that women's cricket in South Africa, and the world as well, but especially in South Africa is healthy. With these players stepping up, you kind of just breathe a little bit lighter, knowing that the day you hang up your boots, the game will still be in a very good place. So yeah, it's just good to see and the fact that they're growing in confidence game by game is good. It brings a really healthy competitiveness within the setup as well, because that's what you want. You don't want players to be complacent, you don't want them to just assume that they deserve to be there. And if you have people knocking on the door, as these youngsters have been, it makes for a very good and healthy competitive environment.
A home T20 World Cup is coming up early next year. How excited are you about it and what does it mean to you?
Yeah, well I watched the last women's World Cup that was in South Africa in 2005. I watched it when I was a kid and it was just incredible. Back in the day, I didn't think that I would have the privilege to play a world cup at home. Touch wood, I won't be injured again, but, I think it's an incredible honour and a privilege to be able to play at home for our families that maybe couldn't travel for whatever reason to have watched their children or daughter play. So, it would just be amazing to play in front of the South African fans and front of our families and friends as well.
And how big a motivation factor is that for you to get back to the team?
Look, it's massive, that alone, just what you said there. I mean the fans, the family, friends, you know, that is what we play for. Obviously, for our teammates and management, there are a lot of factors, but I think obviously as any human being, you want to make your family and your friends proud. And as an athlete, your fans and obviously the company and the sponsors and all those things, but, as a person whose family drives you, I'm just so thankful that we can play at home. I'm just happy for my teammates as well. And I promise you that one of the biggest driving forces within the group is our families, fans, and friends that we keep making them proud. So hopefully we'll do just that.