Thursday, 13 March 2025, 12:21 PM

Rangpur Riders win five out of five; no joy for...

With express pace, good control and a calm, mature demeanour, it can be easy to forget Kwena Maphaka is just a teenager. But when he took his first Test wicket, he provided a reminder of his youth.

Maphaka was into his second spell as a Test cricketer, bowling to one of the world's best, Babar Azam who was on 58. While Maphaka had been getting his speeds up past 140kph, he was still trying to work out his lines and delivered one down the leg side which Babar followed in an attempt to flick away. Babar didn't get hold of it as well as he should have and sent a fine edge into Kyle Verreynne's gloves.

Maphaka ran all the way down the pitch towards Verryenne and then straight past him, almost to the boundary. He spread his arms wide as his team-mates chased him and showed no signs of stopping. "And running through my mind was literally nothing other than, 'I've got my first test wicket, let me run around and parade," Maphaka said at Newlands after South Africa's 10-wicket win. "It was really crazy, I was just trying to hit a good area. That ball did not go where it was supposed to. But things like that happen for a reason, I'm really happy to have got that wicket."