Wiaan Mulder smashed a host of records and entered cricket folklore with his extraordinary, unbeaten 367 from just 334 balls in the second Test against Zimbabwe at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo yesterday. But he stopped short of the ultimate batting record, Brian Lara’s 400.
Or rather, he was stopped short. Coach Shukri Conrad calls the shots in the Proteas changing room and, despite captaining the team for the first time, it was not Mulder’s decision to declare at lunchtime with a total of 626/5. It was a wonderful opportunity spurned.
The principle that individual records should never compromise the team’s goals is admirable — but records are there to be broken and have immense power in influencing and inspiring future, younger generations of cricketers. At the rate he was scoring, Mulder would have required no more than 45 minutes to add the individual world record to the World Test Championship (WTC) in the Proteas trophy cabinet.
The notion that it was “right” for Mulder to be cut short out of “respect” for Lara who scored his runs against higher “profile” England is fatuous nonsense as the editor of the game’s ultimate book of record, the Wisden Almanack, said yesterday:
“Mulder would have been well within his rights to go for Lara’s record. Matthew Hatden had no issues with hammering Zimbabwe for 380, breaking Lara’s first record back in 2003, so why should Mulder have felt squeamish?,” said Lawrence Booth.
“Zimbabwe are an ICC full member nation, and this is a Test match. Cricket’s “morality police” should always be ignored in moments like this,” Booth said.
A 17-year-old Mulder arrived at the Wanderers for his first-class debut in 2016 straight from school wearing his St Stithians blazer and later made his ODI debut for SA at the tender age of 19. He was a super-talented prodigy apparently destined for great things.
A few players do rise smoothly to great expectations but most falter as they adjust to professional cricket. Mulder played a dozen ODIs and made his Test debut as far back as 2019 but failed to secure a place in the Proteas starting XI and did not do justice to his skill. In his case, the reason was simple. It wasn’t about talent, it was about effort. An excess of it.
“I definitely tried too hard in the early years, I was desperate to prove myself and show that I deserved to be there,” he said a few months ago having finally established himself as a fixture in the Proteas squad if not the starting XI. “I’m now much more relaxed and don’t have that fear of failure that I used to battle with. You learn to trust your ability and just go with it.”
Mulder’s promotion to No 3 in the batting order happened by accident when an injured thumb precluded any bowling against Sri Lanka late last year. He looked the part, albeit briefly. But the seed was sowed. Five bowlers, six specialist batsmen and a wicketkeeper (and specialist batsmen) at No 7 meant Mulder would have to remain at No 3.
His metronomically accurate swing bowling was acutely important to the balance of the team and with keeper Kyle Verreynne (first-class average over 50) batting at seven and Marco Jansen’s joyous, unpredictable match-winning place at No 8, the XI was more “loaded” than at any time since 2012 when it was basically a 13-man team with Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers batting in the top five and providing two “free picks” at six and seven.
But would Mulder work? A first-class average over 30 and a highest score of 235 suggested he had the talent. He contributed an important 27 in a stand of 61 in the WTC to stabilise the second innings and set the platform for Temba Bavuma and Aiden Markram’s match-winning partnership of 147.
But it’s fair to say that nobody foresaw anything like what happened on Monday. It was the fifth highest Test score of all time behind Lara (400 & 375), Hayden (380) and Mahela Jayawardene (374). But for a few more, irrelevant minutes, Pieter Willem Adriaan Mulder could have been top of the pile.
“Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity doesn’t do it justice,” said Booth. “The majority of the best batters in the world never come close to such a chance. Pity.”
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