Swimming Upstream
Corné Botha has had to do it all on his own
The Khaya Majola Week is almost here, and naturally, I am scouring the country doing pieces on talented youngsters that will feature at the tournament. A lot of the Khaya Majola Week stuff that I will post here will have appeared on Supersport Schools Plus - some will not. The bottom line is that this will be the first time some of you have heard of these incredible future stars.
Meet Corné Botha from Hoërskool Noordheuwel. He is part of the Gauteng Lions Khaya Majola Week team.
They could have been figures in a Claude Monet landscape painting. Human forms with elongated shadows, cast at an angle by the setting sun that bathed the Wits A outfield in a beautiful orange light.
Corné Botha and Donald Dinake were the last two people on the field. Student and coach were all smiles, Hoërskool Noordheuwel had just defeated St David’s Marist Inanda in the Lions region’s Schools SA20 final. They congratulated each other and waited until the last Noordheuwel team member crossed the boundary rope before they made their way to the dugout.
It was a ritual. Botha and Dinake always left the field last.
“Corné is a curious young man, he wants to know why I do things. One day after a match he asked me why I was always the last person off the field after matches. I told him because as the coach and leader, I must make sure everyone is safe and off the field and no one left anything on it before I walk off. Immediately, he told me that as captain he was going to share in that responsibility,” Dinake explained.
Botha participated in a few cricket matches before his family caught on to the fact that he was playing the sport. He was seven at the time. The KFC Mini-Cricket train had made a stop at Laerskool Krugersdorp Noord and Botha was one of the first students who signed up.
“Before then, Corné hadn’t played much or any cricket. We have always watched cricket, but the default sport for most of us was rugby and we saw him playing rugby with his friends,” Esther, Botha’s mother, shared.
Botha doesn’t get his sporting genes from his mother. She grew up in a small town where she did not get any opportunity to test if she had sporting ability. His father, Corrie, however, played a bit of rugby and was a decent swimmer in his youth.
When Corrie and Esther learned of their son’s love for cricket, they went out of their way to create more opportunities for Botha to experience the game. One of those things was the Friday braais the family hosted regularly.
“All my friends and their families would come for the braai, and we would play cricket until late into the night while the adults hung out,” Botha recalls.
Botha played more matches in two months of Friday braais than he did at Krugersdorp Noord. Corrie was a product of small schools that did not place emphasis on cricket. He understood that Botha had little hope of progressing with the sport if he stayed at Krugersdorp Noord, so they decided to move him to Laerskool Kenmare.
“It was one of the best decisions we made for his cricket. At Kenmare, he was exposed to the Super 12 competition. It is one of the most prestigious competitions amongst competitive primary schools,” Esther explained.
“Corné has that West Rand fight in him. He doesn’t give up,” Zander van der Merwe, one of Botha’s early coaches, shared.
Van der Merwe met Botha when he was 13. The coach identified Botha as an allrounder and helped Botha with his bowling action and getting him stronger and more consistent. Van der Merwe equipped Botha with the ability to think a bit more about his bowling plans and the execution of those plans.
“We also focused on bowling in different periods of the game and how to approach the game,” Van der Merwe explained.
Botha was already playing club cricket when he met Van der Merwe. He was a member of Khosa Cricket Club.
Botha started in the SU4 team at Khosa. He was Corrie’s teammate, who took up club cricket so that he could share in his son’s journey and love for the sport. However, father and son did not play together for long. Botha always showed that he had a higher ceiling in the sport and had a rapid rise through the ranks on his way to joining the club’s premier league A team.
“He has that dogfight in him. When he focuses on a goal, he pursues it with relentlessness,” Minenhle Magubane, Botha’s coach at the Central Gauteng Lions’ U16 team, shared.
Magubane first saw Botha at the Gauteng U15 trials. The coaches trialled Botha in three positions, in the top-order, middle-order and then in the lower-order. He scored centuries in all three positions. Instead of being picked for the U15 team, Magubane selected Botha for the U16 team.
“Corné is unplayable when he is switched on. He destroys bowling attacks and makes them look incompetent,” Magubane explained.
As if to underline Magubane’s faith in his batting, Botha was picked as a number eight batter at the national U16 week. While he did a commendable job with the ball, Botha did his best work with the bat. He top-scored for the Gauteng side from the number eight position.
According to Magubane, Botha is one of the best batters in the province. The Gauteng coach points to Botha’s batting statistics from the 2024 St David’s Marist Inanda Fasken Time Cricket Festival as an example. Botha scored three half-centuries in four innings on his way to being the third-highest run-scorer at the tournament.
However, Magubane’s favourite knock from Botha is from Noordheuwel’s 66-run victory over St Stithians last year. Botha smashed a match-winning 136 runs off 95 balls in a 50-over match. It was a David versus Goliath contest. Noordheuwel’s resources and talent pool do not compare to St Stithians’.
“That was a strong St Stithians outfit. And for Corné to do what he did on that day says a lot about his abilities as a batter,” the coach shared.
“Sometimes you want things to happen quickly. You want to play for SA Under 19 at 16 and play for the Proteas at 21. It will happen for some guys, but it won’t happen for everyone. Sometimes you have to take the longer road. I told Corné that the only thing he can do is put his head down and focus on getting better as a player. If he does that the results will come,” Ronan Herrmann, Joburg Super Kings’ rookie pick in 2023, shared.
Botha and Herrmann met at Noordheuwel, where Herrmann was also a student. Herrmann took the Botha under his wing when he was in Grade 11. The former SA U19 player identified Botha and Ruan Strauss as two youngsters with the potential to go further than their peers in the game. Botha takes the guidance and advice he gets from Herrmann seriously.
“One great thing about Corné is that he never complains. He is a great batter, however, if you pick him as a bowler, he does his best with the ball and then makes a statement with the bat. He plays what is front of him,” Magubane explained.
This was one of the qualities Donald Dinake considered when he picked Botha to captain the Noordheuwel. According to Dinake, having a good tactical mind is not enough as a basis for captaincy. The Noordheuwel coach values character, and Botha has the right character.
Herrmann warned Botha about the type of company he needs to keep off-field. Botha listened and curates the company he keeps around him. At training, he displays a deep hunger for learning and is constantly asking questions.
“One day I told him, don’t forget to be Corné Botha. At home, you are a son, you can’t carry your cricket accomplishments into your parents’ home, they won’t do your chores for you. At Khosa you learn as much as you can, and here, you learn, but I also ask you to lead your teammates. He took that message to heart,” Dinake shared.
Botha takes the responsibility bestowed upon him by his coach seriously. His 135 against St Stithians is a single example is a sea of numerous moments where the 17-year-old has carried the Noordheuwel team on his back. However, Dinake constantly reminds Botha that his duty as captain is not to win games for his team, but to lead them with dignity in victory and in losses.
“I always tell him that sometimes losing can be a launchpad because you can learn from losses. So, even in matches where Noordheuwel is not in a position to win, you won’t see Corné dropping his shoulders. He understands that it sends the wrong message to the rest of the team. He gives his all and fights as if there is a chance to turn things around,” Dinake shared.
It may seem like an arbitrary figure, however, more than 55% of the time that Botha has wielded his beloved GM bat, he has successfully turned things around for his side. And since March 2024, he has been the last person, along with Dinake, to leave the field 100% of the time. He takes his responsibilities seriously.