Mulder Finding Clarity

Wiaan Mulder is finally clear-eyed

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It's gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

- Jimmy Cliff

There are no speakers. There is no music nearby. One can hear the undulating hum of traffic in the distance. Now and then, the air is filled with the unmistakable sound of English willow striking a ball. It's a sweet noise every cricketer loves. Then there is also the sound of the ball hitting the bat; miscues and edges. Surrounded by all that is Wiaan Mulder and the Jimmy Cliff song explains his state of mind: it’s clear.

Mulder met Hashim Amla at the non-striker’s end. The South African legend shared feedback on Mulder's head position and quipped about how cleanly his younger counterpart was striking the ball. It was a good enough joke to get both men laughing. Mulder returned to the batter's end, Amla placed the ball on the dog stick.

The Proteas legend has helped Mulder rediscover his batting. Mulder's story has been that of a prospect taking too long to translate his batting abilities to international cricket. Mulder scores a century in every 7.1 first-class matches with a high score of an unbeaten 235. If you zoom out and use 50 as the base metric, he reaches or passes the milestone every 3.25 innings. His conversion rate is insane, Mulder reaches three figures every 1.18 times after reaching 50.

Mulder has 11 tons and 13 fifties in first-class cricket, and 12 of those 24 milestones have come in since 2022, when he asked his coaches to relieve him of the number seven position, he wanted to bat higher. He looked at himself as a batter who can bowl and not a batter who bowls, so he felt he had little chance of reaching his best down the order.

“I didn’t think I could reach my peak while treating batting as a secondary skill. When I was younger, I was always an opening batter or came in at three. I started batting at seven at the Lions because that’s where the opportunity for me was at the time. And, you know, when you start doing well at a certain position, people start labelling you and they put you into a pigeonhole,” Mulder shared.

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With Amla's help, he is reclaiming his own narrative and writing the next chapters. While they have worked on certain technical aspects of some of his shots, that isn’t what the pair has focused on most of the time. His technique has never been the problem. In fact, in the past two years, Mulder has put less work into his batting than in the past. He has been spending fewer hours in the nets and hitting fewer balls.

“I'm a bit of an over-thinker. So I delve into the technical side of things a lot. And as much as I've improved a lot technically, it's also hindered me a lot in terms of what I'm capable of, freeing myself up to actually just try and take the game on,” Mulder explained.

His carefree nature, the spirit of the teenager who arrived for his interview barefoot at St Stithians, helped him to flourish at the Lions. He treated the cricket field like his backyard. He was that youngster until he made his debut for the Proteas. Whenever he wore the Proteas kit, batting felt like an exam, not an opportunity.

Suddenly, he was that youngster who was compared to greats and had to justify the parallels. Instead of expressing himself, he was nervous and uptight. He could see the carefree version of himself in his mind each he pulled on the Proteas kit, but couldn't summon him when he walked out to bat.

“I really struggled to have that mindset that was like, ‘Listen, I can go out and do this.’ When I faced Pat Cummins or another bowler in international cricket, I felt like I had to be at 100% every time. So the pressure I put on myself hindered me and it was a weight I carried like a backpack for years,” Mulder shared.

Mulder had no control over the noise in his head when he made his international debut. He also had no one to help him or give him the tools to help him deal with self-doubt and pressure, and as a result, he was tangled in a vicious cycle that left him hamstrung.

“You hear the great sportsman and all these people speak about performance being 80, 90, or whatever percentage you want to put to it, what happens between the ears and very little about skill, technique and talent. Those things play a massive role too but, generally, if you can't use what's between the ears, you will never find the recipe to consistently play well,” Mulder shared.

Hashim Amla radiates an air of calmness. It’s not something he has developed as he has grown older, he has always had that aura. Batters who batted with him during his time with Proteas speak of the calming effect he had on them when they shared the crease. He has the same effect on Mulder. The all-rounder is more relaxed when they are working on his batting.

However, it is not a feeling one can carry everywhere and maintain easily in Amla’s absence. Not everyone has the former Proteas’ aura. What he needed was a state of mind and not a feeling. Mulder needed a tool that he could always fall back on when he felt overwhelmed or when the voice of negativity sat on his shoulder and chirped into his ear.

“Hash told me an analogy about a highway. So it's like, on a highway, there are many lanes with many cars, right? You need to see every thought, and every situation that comes up as a car on the road, and you control the cars in the road. You control which cars are going in what direction. How many of them are? What colour, how they look. And you need to get a little bit more control of the cars on your road. I'll never forget that analogy because often I get into a situation and I'm like, ‘Okay, wait a minute. There's a lot of nonsense going on here, I need to just calm down a little bit and accept it for what it is,” Mulder elaborated.

The analogy helped the 26-year-old understand that he didn’t have to fight the noise in his head but take control of it. That, coupled with his self-awareness, which has deepened as he has grown older and matured as an individual, is making him a batter who can finally work towards reaching his potential. He has clarity.

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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS