Left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba could always turn the ball, which is what gave her 22 wickets in 27 matches at an average of 21.86 before last year's T20 World Cup and made her the No. 2 T20I bowler in the world. But she could not always control how much or how quickly she turned it, and her returns dwindled.
After taking six wickets in as many games at the 2023 T20 World Cup, Mlaba played 19 more matches and took 14 wickets and her average ballooned to 38.40. She couldn't quite figure out what was going wrong for her, but she knew she didn't like it.
"I don't know what happened after that. It [my ranking] just went down, down, down. I told myself, 'you know what, girl, you can't be number two and go down. It's number two and you go up to number one; you can't go down,'" Mlaba tells ESPNcricinfo after South Africa beat West Indies in their 2024 T20 World Cup opener. "My mentality was around that. I have to try and get to No. 1."
The attitude shift was one thing, but she also needed an action plan. Mlaba went back to drawing from her "bro", provincial team-mate Keshav Maharaj, who bowls the same discipline as her, and took a leaf out of his book. "Keshav always tells me to bowl more, to bowl until I feel like I'm tired because that's how I'll be more consistent in my bowling," she says. "I always see him at the stadium. That guy can bowl. He uses this big, big bag full of balls and bowls until they are finished."
But volume alone does not make a better bowler. Mlaba also had to add to her skill set, and she has just the person to ask. In August, Cricket South Africa appointed former international wristspinner Paul Adams as their high-performance bowling lead, which sees him work across all national teams. He immediately picked up on a few ways Mlaba could improve, starting with her pace. "Everyone expects her to bowl slower than normal so we tried to look at what changes we could put in place to improve her speeds," Adams told ESPNcricinfo. "One of them was that we've worked on the alignment of her feet and hips to get through so she can get more pace on the delivery."
It helped that Mlaba started off as a pace bowler and still teases some of her team-mates (read: Marizanne Kapp) that she's planning on coming after their spot, and had the basics of bowling quicker in place. She was able to generate momentum through her run-up and in the match against West Indies was bowling between 70kph and 90kph. For comparison, the spinners in Sharjah on the opening day of the tournament were often sending the ball down at less than 60kph so Mlaba's pace was a key point of difference and Hayley Matthews admitted it surprised the West Indian players. The ball she bowled Shemaine Campbell with is an example, as Mlaba fired it flat, fast and on the stumps. Campbell stayed back in the crease, was beaten for pace, and bowled. Asked if she thinks she could bowl a bit faster, Mlaba is bullish. "I can. Trust me, I can."
The other reason Mlaba was so dangerous in Dubai was because of the line she maintained: stump-to-stump and very rarely straying. That's also the result of an Adams innovation which is aimed at improving accuracy. "We do quite a lot of work on how the arms work and I have been using weighted balls, which are slightly heavier than regular balls, so that the players can have control of their arms and legs. And then they use that to project and get towards the target that they need to bowl to, and I think the weighted balls have worked nicely."
Chinelle Henry's dismissal, when she feathered an edge to a jubilant Sinalo Jafta, off a ball that was floated up, pitched just outside off and turned only a touch, is testament to the work Adams has done with Mlaba.
In the end, the final ingredient that went into Mlaba's career-best figures was a stunning catch from Tazmin Brits, who pounced on a chance from Aaliyah Alleyne. That ball was one of Mlaba's less good ones, shorter and inviting a big shot. When Alleyne accepted and tried to force it past Brits at cover point, she lunged forward and plucked it off the floor to ensure Mlaba grabbed a piece of history. And that kind of do-it-all-for-your-team-mates approach is the way South Africa want to play at this tournament.
"We're a young group, we're very playful and sometimes we don't really take things seriously even though they're serious. We try not to put much pressure on ourselves." Mlaba says. "We always say if we go there and things don't go our way, we still have another chance. It's not the end of the world. Our mentality is just out of this world. We are very strong and we're fighting for each other as well."
But it's more than that. It has become the South African way (thanks to Siya Kolisi's world champion Springboks) to say that they are playing for much, much more than themselves: for 68 million people who often survive on hope alone and Mlaba, who comes from a deprived part of the country, knows exactly what that feels like and how she wants to express it.
"Representing your country is never an easy thing and for me to be the one who's representing South Africa, it means a lot to me. I'm never playing for myself only," she says. "I'm representing my family, friends, little kids that are looking up to me in the township, and I try to make sure that they see me as their role model. I also try to show you can play, but also be yourself as well."
That much is evident in her signature blonde hair, her special celebrations, which often involve a choreographed dance, her love for her one-year-old puppy and high fashion. The blue dress she wore at CSA's Annual awards, where she won One-Day Player of the Year, is still being talked up as a showstopper.
On Friday, in Dubai, she stopped the show in other ways with a statement bowling performance that set South Africa up for a dominant opening win and Mlaba for her race to the top of the bowling rankings.