The Wunderkind: Steve Stolk Jr
Meet Pretoria Capitals' Rookie, Steve Stolk
Welcome to the Rookie Series. “The Rookie Series”, as the name suggests, features the six rookies picked by SA20 franchises at the 2023 auction. These pieces are designed to bring these incredible young players closer to you, the fans. They draw the curtain and allow you to look into their world. We’ll have a new “Rookie series” essay over the next few weeks. It should be really fun. To kick off the series, we look at Steve Stolk, Pretoria Capitals’ rookie for 2024. Thanks, as always, for your support!
In May 2023, Steve Stolk had to do a job with the bat. Just 30 minutes earlier, Stolk had scored an unbeaten 157 off 70 to lead the Bank All-Stars’ Under-17 team to victory. He hadn’t had time to soak in the moment or get out of his gear before he and his family scrambled into the car for the 13-minute drive to Old Parks Stadium.
The Bank All Stars’ Under-19 coach asked Steve Stolk Sr to rush his son over. He needed him for the final. “After arriving at Old Parks, I think he went in to play within 10 to 15 minutes,” says Steve Sr.
Stolk went in to bat at number three. Bank All-Stars Under-19 were in trouble early. They had lost two wickets for one run in the first over. Stolk scored 78 off 37 to lead the Under-19 team to victory. That’s what Steve Stolk Jr. does, he bats.
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Stolk has been batting since he was four. He hung a ball on a rope in a tree at their home in Pretoria and in Stilbaai (Still Bay) below the deck, when Stolk was around 9 years old. It didn’t matter whether they were in Stilbaai or Pretoria, that’s where you found him 70% of the time, under the tree or the deck visualizing hitting every shot his young mind could imagine, hook shots, sweeps, drives and cuts into gaps.
As he grew older, his favourite place changed to the nets his father built for him. “When Steve was still young, I realised that he had talent and needed somewhere he could practice properly,” says Steve Sr.
There was no money to hire professional installers and Steve Sr had a welding machine, so he took upon the task of erecting the structure himself, using second-hand shade netting for the sides and top. It took him a month of working an hour or so a day after work on the project and weekends to complete it. When he thought he was done, they realised that they needed a different surface for the pitch, the ball did not bounce properly on the lawn.
A family friend came through with a conveyor belt. He was in construction, had a used conveyor belt lying around and had heard that they made decent surfaces. Everything was on a budget. The bowling machine was a second-hand job that Steve Sr refurbished.
Stolk grooved his technique in those homemade nets.
When he was nine, Stolk interrupted a meeting with his batting. Arno van Wyk remembers the day as if it was just yesterday. The conversations around him slowed down and stalled. People moved closer to the boundary ropes. The young boy had everyone’s attention. Van Wyk had seen a lot of youngsters take on bowlers, but not like this.
Van Wyk was at Laerskool Lynnwood to have a chat with the older boys, mostly the Laerskool Lynnwood first XI players, about their future and high school options. He hadn’t planned on watching an Under-11 cricket match. Yet, here he was, watching a nine-year-old taking down bowlers older than him.
In 1997, van Wyk started the Laerskool Lynnwood Cricket Academy, one of the country's first Cricket South Africa-supported school cricket academies. Between 1997 and 2005, before he left Laerskool Lynnwood to take up a post at Die Hoẽrskool Menlo Park, van Wyk saw many talented youngsters come and go, but none as precocious as Stolk. The nine-year-old was putting on a masterclass. Van Wyk didn’t need anyone to tell him, he knew he was watching a special player.
“Scoring a hundred is not easy, that’s why they must always be celebrated. But, the 100 Steve scored that day wasn’t just a hundred, it was a fine hundred,” says van Wyk.
After the match, van Wyk walked over to congratulate the youngster. Four years later, van Wyk would walk over to congratulate Stolk on another well-played innings. He had not scored a century, but just as he had done when he was nine, Stolk had played an innings beyond his years. At 13, Stolk was intentional about where he hit the ball against Menlo Park’s older first-XI bowlers.
Steve Sr loves it when his son scores centuries, but he has a deeper appreciation of innings where Stolk is in control, even if he doesn’t reach 100 or more. One time, Steve Sr asked Stolk where he would rather be, in the dugout or out on the field. Stolk said he preferred to be on the field. “I told him the only way he could be on the field for as long as he wanted was if he didn’t give the opposition a chance to dismiss him,” says Steve Sr.
Stolk’s chanceless innings of 40 runs for Menlo Park’s second XI against the first XI convinced van Wyk and the coaching staff that Stolk was ready for first XI cricket. “He handled the fast bowlers with ease and that’s when we knew he would be able to play with the seniors immediately,” says van Wyk.
Over the next four years, van Wyk watched Stolk score both flamboyant, swashbuckling hundreds against quality schoolboy attacks, and patient, measured knocks on difficult pitches, and everything in between. Between 2019 and 2023, Stolk scored 12 centuries for Die Hoërskool Menlo Park. Stolk is the joint-youngest player to feature in Menlo Park’s first XI. The other is Rassie van der Dussen who debuted for Menlo Park at 13 in 2002. Stolk is on Menlo Park’s list of the top five players with the most centuries for the First XI.
Van Wyk’s favourite century from that list of 100s came in 2023. It also happens to be Steve Sr’s favourite. “He didn’t give the opposition an opportunity to dismiss him. No dropped catches, and no nervous lbw appeals,” says Steve Sr.
Stolk has batted at number three for most of his life, but on this day, he came in at number six. Menlo Park was in trouble, floundering on 63 for four after 15 overs. From the moment he arrived at the crease, Stolk oozed class. He played risk-free shots and yet somehow found a boundary in each over against a disciplined Affies bowling attack.
“That 100 against Affies was a statement to the world about how much he has grown as a cricketer. I saw for the first time that he was maturing,” says van Wyk.
In 2021, Stolk handed Chanelda a trophy with the inscription, ‘best ever cricket supporter sister in the word’ on her birthday. She threw balls for her brother when he needed her to. She operated the old bowling machine when needed, and she has attended almost every match Stolk has played since he was 9. Between the three of them, Steve Sr, his wife Lizelle and their daughter Chanelda have only missed three or four matches that Stolk has played.
The message from his family has been consistent, we are a team, we work together. The family’s role is to be there for him, always, and provide whatever form of support he needs. If he is going through a rough spell as he did in 2021, when he couldn’t hit the ball off the square, they are there to remind him that he is not defined by the numbers on the scoreboard. He could score 20 consecutive ducks and they would show up to the next match to cheer him on.
They are also there to celebrate the good times with him. In return, Stolk has to work on his craft. “In 2019, I told him if he wanted to pursue cricket as a career, the decision of how he went about it was up to him. He decides if he wants to put in the effort, train and work hard,” says Steve Sr.
Since 2019, Stolk has kept his end of the bargain by waking up at 5 a.m. for an early morning session in the nets. Van Wyk joins him twice a week to work on Stolk’s technique. “It’s the best time to work on fundamentals, fine-tune his basics,” says van Wyk. Stolk also takes part in team training throughout the week. Often, he is the last one to leave.
The time and effort Stolk puts into his cricket is on the opposite end of what many assume to be the life of a precocious talent. Effortless genius is an attractive storyline for rising stars. It is sports’ version of the immaculate conception. It presents precocious youngsters as unencumbered by the same obstacles that draw regular kids backwards. Stolk is a precocious talent, and it’s easy to overlook his struggles.
In Talent Code, Dan Coyle demonstrates how top coaches and instructors empower young stars to leverage failure as a building block for future success. ‘We think of effortless performance as desirable, but it's really a terrible way to learn,’ Coyle quotes writer and researcher Robert Bjork.
Neither van Wyk nor Steve Sr has read Coyle’s book, but the philosophy resonates with both men. They taught Stolk that failure is a part of the process of becoming better and not an indictment of your abilities. “The 100s give him confidence. But confidence can be a dangerous thing in a young man because he can get reckless, thinking he is invincible. So, success needs to be tempered with disappointment and failure. You have to fail. If you don’t fail there is no progress,” says van Wyk.
Stolk’s first crushing failure came when he was 10 when he went for the provincial under-11 trials. His best friend made it and he failed to make the cut. He was crushed. He grasped around for reasons why he hadn’t succeeded, and his father stopped Stolk in his tracks. “I told him: you were not good enough during the trials to make the team, that’s why you didn’t make it, nothing else. If you want to try again next year, you have to start preparing now. Work harder and when you get there, go harder,” says Steve Sr.
That’s what he has been doing since then. When he fails, he goes back to the drawing board and finds a way to improve. When he takes to the field, he goes hard at the opposition and yet manages to make everything look easy and effortless because he is Steve Stolk Jr., and that’s what Steve Stolk Jr. does when he bats. And sometimes when he is not batting, he bowls.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS