While many of the world’s leading cricketers will surf straight into the Women’s Hundred from the Commonwealth Games, match-honed and tournament-ready, Dane van Niekerk will be anything but. Since she lifted last year’s trophy as captain of the Oval Invincibles, the South African has played just 25 times and not at all since November, her year so far having been completely ruined by a freak dog-feeding accident just weeks before March’s World Cup.
“I do a lot of stupid things but probably that wasn’t one of the best decisions I could make so close to a World Cup,” Van Niekerk says. “Marizanne [Kapp, her wife and teammate with both South Africa and the Invincibles] always tells me I’m a loose head. It was an honest, freak accident. It was raining and I was on the wooden deck outside the house. I needed to go down to feed my dogs and I tried to climb down from the edge, and as I did that my feet gave way. I heard a snap, and I knew straight away that was my World Cup.
