A few days have passed after being crowned the inaugural Division One, 50-over women’s competition champions this past weekend at the Wanderers stadium, also affectionally known as “The Bullring”. I thought I would share some of my experiences as the Dolphin Ladies team physiotherapist in this historic season for women’s cricket in South Africa.
The 2023/24 season marked the first-ever professional season in women’s cricket in South Africa for the T20 and 50-over format competitions. A landmark moment for female cricket in our country. While the T20 competition was a forgone conclusion long before the season closed, the 50-over tournament came down to the very last match day, with the team securing victory against the title-challenging DP World Lions Ladies team.
Being part of the so-called “backroom staff” tasked with playing a role in keeping the players in the best possible health and peak performance. I joined the week after match weekend one, meaning there was no time to settle in. It was a hit-the-ground-running type of start to my new position. The management team comprised head coach Angelique Taai, assistant coach Sandile Caluza, batting consultant Shafika Pillay, and Strength and conditioning coach Amandla Ntlangula.
The timelines meant that the approach needed would be different than if one had time to implement ideas of your own. There was no time for the usual neuromuscular screening testing and player evaluations, that would usually be carried out in preseason, and well, the focus I placed was more along the lines of how do I keep all the “walking wounded” eligible for selection while doing quick screen tools to get the information in the shortest period. When you are the new guy on the team, it’s easy to feel the pressure to impose your ideas and feel like you have to add value. I guess as a young physio, I would have made that mistake like so many do. However I didn’t bite at the temptations, and temptations there were plenty.
With female cricket space being amateur for years and then suddenly turning professional over a month or two, the old stigmas and beliefs remain. It’s a blank canvas that a physiotherapist can paint on, as there is such a vast variety of issues to address, change, and systems to implement. But the key when the season is underway, is trust. Teamwork, or team culture is built on trust. Think back to the alignment camps that Springbok-winning Coach Rassie Erasmus speaks of, so much in his book and on the popular “Chasing the Sun” TV series. The same applies here, how is the coach going to trust my calls on player availability if she doesn’t know me? How are the female players going to be willing to share information with a stranger that they just met? How are my fellow medical team member’s and I going to establish boundaries for player-centric care when I am the new guy yet he has done all the so-called “spade work” over the past 18 months he has been with the team? And as every South African knows, how do we bridge the cultural gaps when you are in a team of such different religions, beliefs, and races?
The best approach, in my opinion, was to hold my tongue and observe, work on the players requiring immediate care, try to find the middle ground with personal, and then of course do all the ugly stuff that people just don’t see. That means being as professional as you can be by speaking well, picking up cones, helping with the handing out of the water, throwing a few balls to players in the nets, or even driving the car to and from the airport to shuttling players around when on tour. I made an effort to get to know as many of the people as possible, even if it was just a private joke between the player/staff member and myself. Developing common ground is always key to building rapport and trust. If the person doesn’t like you or trust you, it’s a secure deal that it will be a struggle to implement long-term change. I addressed all this while treating those who needed immediate care and as players improved, trust was formulated in the methods I used.
We tackled the limiting beliefs that most sports people have such as whether this supplement is going to help me or if I don’t have my strapping I will get injured again etc. I say “we” because it was a two-man job, if the Strength and Conditioning coach and I aren’t metaphorically not speaking the same language, then players will do what players do best, find weak links to expose when the situation arises. Amandla and I set up weekly calls on a Sunday to discuss plans for players before the cricket week began, leaving minimal room for players to fall through the cracks. We as the medical team also gave talks to the players about basic training concepts, nutrition, and hydration to help player awareness to a more science-based mindset. As the saying goes “you can’t know what you don’t know”.
In discussing all of this, acknowledging the role of our Head Coach and Performance manager Yashveer Singh, in being approachable and receptive to the ideas and structures we as the medical team tried to enforce within the past 7 months has been a breath of fresh air. The coach’s vision for the team has been a 3-year plan of success and the introduction of the Strength and Conditioning coach last year and now a physiotherapist into the team structure has been part of the professional development that she has strongly been a part of. This was very evident in the freedom and platform of expression we had to approach with ideas within our scopes of practice, no matter how small the idea was, if it would benefit the team, she let us be creative in our constructs, without micro-management.
So as the season now whinges to close, end-of-season reports are being edited, and reflection on the positive as well as what can be done better going forward has commenced. The job of the physio never ends with off-season, the pursuit of excellence in a space that has so much potential means that it starts with adapting to challenges faced and planning for the controllable variables to come in the next preseason, to give the players the best chance to succeed once more. But for now, let us just enjoy the sip of success tasted as we take our seats on this small slice of history created in women’s cricket in South Africa.
