Sometimes you just know
Nqobani Mokoena has an X-factor quality
“He’s always been incredibly calm and composed under pressure. Some players are simply born with that temperament. I can’t really take credit for how he handles adversity that’s something that has always been part of who he is,” Khalipa Cele said.
Sometimes you just know.
Kepler Wessels didn’t know that the youngster he was watching was a baseball prospect. Mornantau ‘Nantie’ Hayward was a pitcher in the mold of Bob Gibson: he possessed an unhittable fastball and was aggressive on the mound. He once missed cricket provincial trials because he was on tour with the South Africa’s baseball junior side.
What Wessels saw, in a handful of deliveries, was a future Proteas star. He asked Colin Bland to bring the boy to him. A few days later, the 17-year-old Hayward was making his debut for Eastern Province’s senior team. Hayward played his maiden ODI four years after that. It wasn’t long before he was getting plaudits.
“There’s only one bowler who can intimidate, who can hurt, who can be a spearhead when Allan Donald finally retires and that’s Nantie Hayward,” Gary Kirsten told reporters.
In 2021, Hayward experienced what Wessels experienced 27 years earlier. The former South Africa international didn’t know that he was looking at a former leg spinner. Most youngsters start off as pacers before abandoning the craft because they aren’t threatening enough.
Mokoena stopped bowling the turning ball because his junior coaches saw him fooling around, bowling pace for fun. They immediately knew there was something there. Hayward watched Nqobani Mokoena sparring with Mfanafuthi Shange in the nets at Northwood School and was convinced. It took less than an over of deliveries for him to be certain.
“I just thought he was special. He was bowling short. I loved to bowl quick and short. I just thought to myself, ‘this is my kind of boy,’” Hayward shared.
Football is the sport of choice in KwaMashu, KwaZulu-Natal. Boys with handmade or cheap knockoff balls turn small strips of the road into stadia where they show off their skills. Mokoena is a product of those streets. So, it’s no surprise that Mokoena didn’t come into contact with cricket equipment until he was 10 years old.
Shange was one of the first few kids to embrace the KZN Development Cricket programme that introduced cricket to townships. The programme laid pitches on open fields and football grounds and offered training. Mokoena and Shange were joined to the hip, so he would tag along to watch his friend play.
“My friend introduced me to the game. I used to go watch him play cricket and one of the days the coaches invited me and I was like, why not? Let me just try it out. And then I really enjoyed it. KFC Mini Cricket made it more fun. I never looked back after that,” Mokoena shared.
Cricket got him a scholarship to Northwood School, one of the top private schools in the province. He was also fortunate that batting brilliance did the same for Shange. As they did on KwaMashu’s dusty streets, they didn’t leave each other’s side. At Northwood, they just about lived in the nets.
Their days began with net sessions from 5 to 6am, sometimes it was from 6 to 7am. They had afternoon training with the team. Then in the evenings, Mokoena knocked on Hayward’s door at 7 or 8pm asking for permission to use the facilities.
“Nqobani put the extra yards in. He did a lot of work when no one was watching,” Hayward, who joined the duo on some nights, recalled.
When he joined them, Hayward did his best to nudge Mokoena in the right direction to maximise his natural talents. The result was a pacer who was too quick for his peers. His teammates didn’t want to face him in the nets. The opposition batters were afraid of him.
“He didn’t get many wickets because he was too quick. He didn’t nick off many batters because Nqobani’s deliveries were too fast for them. That frustrated him a lot,” Hayward shared.
Mokoena’s reputation preceded him. Mduduzi Mbatha, who was with the Dolphins at the time, heard of the talented Northwood pacer before he saw him in action. He wasn’t disappointed when he went to Northwood to watch him in a match.
“He has always been a laid back kid but is always up for the challenge. He likes being the guy in a very quiet way and enjoys having to stand up and make a difference,” Mbatha shared.
Hayward describes Mokoena as a natural athlete who didn’t need a lot of technical work to help his action. The main thing he worked on with Mokoena was how to maintain an upright frame. Mbatha had the same experience. He didn’t have to do a lot of work on Mokoena’s action once the teenager joined the Dolphins.
“Nqobani has always had raw pace but fell over, which would get him to go down leg at times but he worked on getting upright and we were able to control his line and length better,” Mbatha revealed.
They did basic alignment drills and focused going towards the target. One of those drills included cones lining up towards the target and Mokoena’s duty was to stay within the channel from release to the target.
Living between two sharply contrasting cultures can be disorienting for youngsters. KwaMashu and Northwood are worlds apart. Mokoena and Shange needed someone to help them navigate those realities. They gravitated towards Khalipa Cele, a former professional cricketer, who was part of the coaching staff at Northwood at the time.
“As an educator and coach, I also understand what young players go through, especially young black cricketers. I was one of them. I walked that journey myself, so I think that’s where we really connected. He knew that when we spoke about the challenges or the path ahead, it wasn’t theory it was something I had lived,” Cele revealed.
The conversations they had helped Mokoena to have clear picture of who he was, what he wanted, where he was headed, and how to get there.
“Through coaching, conversations, and the relationship you build with a young player, you hope to help shape and strengthen that resilience over time. But I do believe he already had that inner calm and belief long before I worked with him,” Cele continued.
Pace. That was the first thing Richard das Neves when he watched Mokoena at the CSA High-Performance Centre in Pretoria in 2025. Das Neves was working with the SA u19 team, helping them to prepare for the 2025 u19 World Cup.
Pace is what got Mokoena into the u19 side in 2023. He was a Grade 10 student. It secured him his debut for the Dolphins in September 2024. However, that is not what cemented his place in both teams.
“His ability to bowl fast. To easily hit 140 seam up, angling the ball back into right handers with a nice sharp bouncer stood out for me. What impressed me the most was his variation of pace,” Das Neves said.
The seasoned coach pointed to Mokoena’s ability to disguise his variations, especially his off-cutter. However, there is a difference between having good variations and using them effectively.
“What stood out more in the SA20 pre-season was his understanding of how to use it, when to use it, and then set certain fields to it and then execute. It seemed that from a tactical point of view he was ahead of his age,” Das Neves explained.
Das Neves wasn’t the only person Mokoena impressed at the Paarl Royals during the pre-season. Shane Burger, the Royals’ bowling coach, didn’t just notice a skillful youngster, he saw a hungry player. According to Burger, Mokoena is a student of the game.
The teenager approached all conversations with Burger and Burger and the team’s analyst with a growth mindset. He was a sponge. Mokoena did not display rigidity when it came to tweaking certain parts about his game. He took in all feedback and came back a better player the next day.
Like Hayward and Mbatha, Burger didn’t do a lot of technical work with the youngster. They tweaked his gather and did a few drills to improve his alignment.
“When we signed him we knew the talent he had, we probably didn’t realise how quickly that talent could be unearthed and how composed and how calm he is under pressure. He is a really good character, he works hard and is diligent,” Burger explained.
Mokoena kept Tom Latham on the back foot with a back-of-a-length delivery on the off stump channel. The New Zealand opener hung back in the crease and patted the ball to the fielder stationed at backward point. He sent down that delivery five years after his first encounter with Hayward.
It was the first of 21 deliveries he bowled in his maiden T20I outing for the Proteas. Mokoena finished that match with three wickets for 26 runs in 3.3 overs. The numbers tell a good story, his ball-by-ball performance told a better one, and anyone who saw Mokoena’s delivery to Latham knew that this was a special player.
Because sometimes you just know.