Kruger can launch missiles
A peek into Patrick Kruger's journey
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It's tradition. The Burma Lads Cricket Club meets in a park about two kilometres away from their home ground. They have one or two drinks. The assembly doesn't grow into a full-fledged fines meeting. It's a public space and one gets in trouble with the law for such things.
The tradition was born out of necessity. Burma Lads doesn't have a home ground. They play home games at a local school ground, St Patrick's CBC. Alcoholic beverages are prohibited on school property, hence the park. The best they can do when it comes to a clubhouse is Ricky Joseph's home.
Joseph describes Burma Lads as a family with a cricket problem. They share equipment and look out for each other as family members do. "One of our big things is being there for each other and putting the club first. You see 40-year-old guys playing for the second XI team and cheer for a teenager in the first team as if it's their son," Joseph shared.
They play at St Patrick's because one of their members is a teacher at the institute. He negotiated a deal with the school. They have no training ground and practice at the Northern Cape Heat indoor nets. Their training is always after the Division Two side's players, who are very accommodating, are done with their sessions.
And yet, this club that operates with next to no resources has produced three players who have represented South Africa: Reeza Hendricks, Gihahn Cloete and most recently, Patrick Kruger.
According to a study of 700 Major League Baseball players, younger siblings are 2.5 times more likely to have a superior career than their older siblings. Another study, an analysis of 33 sports in Australia and Canada, found that the majority of professional athletes had older siblings.
This is the little sibling effect. Younger siblings are challenged more when they compete with their older siblings. The challenge of playing up and competing with bigger, stronger and better-skilled older siblings accelerates skill acquisition.
Patrick Kruger's family has a special relationship with sports - they love it. They watch almost everything, but especially rugby, football, hockey and cricket. Kruger was barely out of his nappies when he cottoned on to the pastime. When he was old enough to participate, he found himself face to face with an older, stronger, and better-skilled opponent ready and waiting: his older brother, Aubrey Swanepoel.
By the time Kruger turned eight, the contests between the siblings were much closer in a way that belied the six-year age gap between the boys. In part because Swanepoel taught Kruger everything he was learning at school. The other reason was that Kruger was big for his age. According to Swanepoel, at 10, Kruger looked 15 or 16.
“We had a lot of contests, some of which turned into fights, in the backyard. Patrick didn’t like to lose,” Aubrey Swanepoel, Kruger’s older brother, shared.
When the boys were not competing against each other, they took the 15-minute walk from Homevale to Homestead, where their uncle, Brian du Plessis, lived. Du Plessis, a teacher by profession, ran a small cricket academy. He is the reason why the siblings are allrounders.
He put them through drills that tested their batting, fielding and bowling skills. “He always said that if are not an allrounder and can’t field, you won’t go anywhere with cricket,” Swanepoel shared.
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“We had a rule in the nets. You weren’t allowed to turn your back when Patrick was batting,” Joseph recalled. It was a safety precaution. Kruger had the quickest hand speed in the team and hit the ball the hardest. The Burma Lads didn’t want to risk any of their team members being hospitalised by a Kruger missile.
Kruger didn’t just bully teammates who fed him throwdowns and bowlers who helped him train. He decimated opposition teams. In early 2016, Kruger batted Burma Lads to a Club Champs title. He scythed bowlers from established development centres that include Northerns and North West to top the run-getters list.
Seven months after leading the Burma Lads to the title, Kruger was opening the batting for the Knights. He faced a Cape Cobras bowling lineup with Rory Kleinveldt, Dane Paterson, George Linde and a fit Kieron Pollard. Kruger top-scored for the Knights with 74 off 49 for a strike rate of 151. No other Knights batter crossed the 30-run mark.
Kruger was the designated opener, and he top-scored for the Knights four times in nine outings, passed 40 thrice and registered two half-centuries. He failed to pass the 30-run mark a mere three times.
"I am a middle-order batter, so it was a big thing for our family, a very proud moment, when the two of us opened the batting for the Knights when we were up against the Dolphins in 2019," Swanepoel shared.
After his spell with the Knights, Kruger moved to Free State and then landed at the Warriors in 2023. Free State did not see him as an opener and shuffled him down the order, so when he arrived in Gqeberha, he was part of the middle-to-lower order. Robbie Petersen slotted him in at number seven.
Kruger’s best innings for the Warriors came in back-to-back outings in List A cricket. He scored an unbeaten 135 against the Lions and registered 109 runs against the Titans. In the match against the Lions, Kruger’s side was on 99/5 when he got to the crease and saw them to 334/6.
However, Kruger showed his resolve in the innings against the Titans. The Warriors were in all sorts of trouble, struggling on 51/5 when he joined Tristan Stubbs (159) in the middle. The pair put together a match-winning 220-run sixth-wicket partnership.
10 months later, Kruger was constructing another brilliant sixth-wicket stand with Stubbs, this time for the Proteas in the Caribbean.
With the ball, Kruger has skills that make him a great sixth bowler, thanks to the skills honed during the countless hours he tried to dismiss Swanepoel in the backyard. Then there were du Plessis' drills.
"He went through a phase where all he wanted to do was bat and became a reluctant bowler," Joseph recalled of Kruger’s years with Burma Lads. However, his reluctance notwithstanding, once you got the ball into his hand, the agreed two overs turned into a full quota.
Kruger’s accuracy and ability to swing it both ways mean that he can manage the middle overs expertly, denying opposition batters room to express themselves. In the series against the West Indies, Kruger only bagged a couple of wickets, but he had the second-best economy rate in the South African bowling attack. He was behind Ottniel Baartman.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Patrick Kruger.
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