Many, if not most, elite sportspeople turn their passion into their profession but occasionally things work the other way. Nonkululeko Mlaba is an example of someone for whom cricket was a job first, and the joy came later.
Mlaba grew up in the township of KwaMashu, north-west of Durban, in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal on South Africa's east coast. Like many of the areas the apartheid government demarcated for black Africans, KwaMashu was densely populated and severely under-resourced, and residents were deprived of access to good-quality housing, roads or sports facilities. Democracy arrived in 1994, and Mlaba, born in 2000, grew up with a certain level of hardship.
As a child, she "didn't even know there was a sport called cricket", but once she was introduced to it, she got involved casually. She played at Lindelane Cricket Club in the neighbouring township of Ntuzuma, where she bowled pace until her coach, Sandile Caluza, turned her into a spinner.
"I didn't understand it at first and I was so mad," Mlaba says, "but I started to enjoy it more because I didn't have to run to bowl. I could just walk in and bowl.
"But it wasn't easy. When I first started bowling spin, my fingers were sore. I felt like the webbing was going to split and it was really hard."
In her teens, Mlaba trained at one of Cricket South Africa's hubs, development facilities established across the country to unearth talent outside the elite schooling system. The one Mlaba was at, the INK hub, which served Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu, is among the most successful. It was where offspinner Nondumiso Shangase, who is also part of the World Cup squad, and allrounder Andile Simelane, who has played nine T20Is for South Africa's men's side, emerged. The hub continues to do its job of talent-spotting, but the more pressing question is what comes next.
Mlaba had just completed her schooling when the Kwa-Zulu Natal union expressed an interest in her making the step up to provincial cricket. Though KwaMashu is only 16kms from Kingsmead, the difficulties in using public transport and the dangers of travelling at certain times of the day meant she was unlikely to be able to devote as much time to training as she would have liked. The gap had to close.
The board stepped in, and in partnership with corporate sponsors, funded an apartment for Mlaba and Shangase to live in in the upmarket suburb of Musgrave, and also provided them with a monthly stipend. Much closer to Kingsmead, their new base was convenient and secure. It was also a golden ticket to building a career, as they effectively now had jobs. If that hadn't been offered to her, what else could Mlaba have done?
"I don't know," she says. "At that phase of my life, there was pressure. I was out of school, I needed to try and get a job, provide for my family. For most people, you study and then you work. Cricket really helped us a lot. It helped us to not really focus on trying to do other things, and money they gave us, we gave to our families to buy groceries. Because you know with black tax…"
"Black tax" is a term used by South Africans of colour to describe the financial responsibility they have to provide for extended families whose opportunities were limited by the structural inequalities of segregation. "With black tax, you have to help make the family home better than what it was before," Mlaba says.
"Now since we're playing on TV, you need to make sure that you pay that 1.2 [R1200 or about US$70] for DSTv [Digital Satellite Television, a broadcast service] for your family to be able to watch and support you. As much as you have a future, you still need to think about them as well. You can save but at the same time, if there's an emergency at home, you're going to have to take from your savings. It's just how it works."
Cricket gave Mlaba the opportunity to become a bread-winner. Only then did she really start to enjoy the bread.
Not long after making the move to Durban, she was picked for South Africa's T20I squad on a tour to India in 2019. Shortly after that, she was included in the squad for the 2020 T20 World Cup. South Africa lost narrowly in a rain-affected semi-final to Australia in what was an early indicator of their potential to challenge the best. They didn't succeed in upsetting the eventual champions but the building blocks of the belief that they could were put in place there.
The overall experience had a profound impact on Mlaba, who was 19 then. "I changed after that World Cup," she says. "I was still young there and I didn't really know what I was doing. I was just bowling the ball. After that, I started to take my game seriously. I started to work on my skill, I started to work on variations and I actually fell in love with the game."
It helped that South Africa did not have another left-arm spinner. Former player and current Under-19 coach Dinesha Devnarain urged Mlaba to fill that gap in the market. "She told me that in South Africa we were struggling to find the left-arm spin bowlers, so I had to take it seriously. She kept telling me that I must keep working and keep pushing."
While turning the ball came naturally to Mlaba, she had to work on things like changes of pace and line. A stint with Paul Adams ahead of and during last year's T20 World Cup helped her tweak her action and taught her better alignment.
"I'm still learning," Mlaba says. "I'm still young and I still have a lot to fix in my bowling, even in my action, but the more I get the game time, the more I get to understand my game. These days, I try to bowl the quicker one, the one that does not turn and attacks the stumps, so I have both. I already have the turn, and I try to also have the straighter ones. I even watch a lot of cricket now. I never used to watch cricket, but now I watch cricket. And then I can pick up some things that can work for me as a bowler."
In the last year, Mlaba's hard work has paid off handsomely. She was the second-highest wicket-taker at the 2024 T20 World Cup in the UAE, where South Africa finished as runners-up, became the first South African to take ten wickets in a women's Test, and is now their leading bowler at the ongoing ODI World Cup.
While she has been celebrated at home, where she won the top prize at the CSA's awards earlier this year, Mlaba has yet to attract any interest from leagues abroad, which would be the next rung on her career ladder.
She thinks she knows why it's out of reach. "I've asked a few people, and maybe if I can work on my batting, I'd have a chance of being picked, but not everyone is going to be an allrounder, I'm a bowler and maybe one day I'll transition into an allrounder but for now my main focus is bowling and doing that as best as I can. I don't want to put myself under pressure because I want to play for the outside leagues. If they pick me, I'll be happy but if they don't, it's not stopping me from working. I'm still going to work."
The job now is to get South Africa to their first ODI World Cup final. To do that, they will have to beat England, the side they have lost to in the last two semi-finals of this tournament. There's pressure to perform but also acceptance that South Africa are still a work in progress, a team who have neither a historically well-developed pipeline like Australia and England, nor a massive population and the ability to sink a lot of money into the game like India do. South Africa are building from the ground up and if there was one person who embodies what that looks like, it's Mlaba.
"Because of that [being one of the faces of successful transformation], sometimes I feel like I need to step up but then I also remind myself that cricket is a funny game. Today you might get the results you want, tomorrow you might not. I just want to try and do my best and help the team. I just want to use the chances that I have and showcase my talent."