Why? “I love hitting the ball far and whenever I have a session, I always ask the coach, ‘Can I do a little power-hitting?’ Reineke says from South Africa’s pre-T20 World Cup camp in Pretoria. “It’s about developing the skill, but also about seeing how I can do it under pressure and practicing it. So when the time comes, when the pressure is on, (I know) what I’m going to do.”
So, about those numbers…
Reinecke says that he never liked these people at school. Still, she is considering further studies in business management. “I hated school,” she says. “All those accounting books were the things I really struggled with.”
Instead, she spent time as the only girl in a boys’ team at Laerskool Mikro in Kuils River in the Western Cape. This was in the 2010s, when cricket was a growing sport among girls, but not so in the forests of Reineke. “It was very rare to have a girl on a boys’ team,” she says. “When I got to Grade 11 (at Bellville High School) I noticed there were more girls. If you go to Gauteng and Joburg, it seemed there were more girls on that side.”
“The way the girls are training at the moment is crazy. There is so much focus. Even when there is a water break, we discuss cricket and then we are very focused and very specific. It gives me goosebumps.”
This turned out to be something Reinecke enjoyed. She says, “You obviously learn to take ownership of yourself and your space and other people. It was challenging in some ways when I needed to think about certain scenarios in the game but it showed me what I can work on in terms of how I think about the game and how I think about the game.” “And then, obviously, different situations, how you read it as a captain, and it was a good challenge.”
When asked which major international stars she was looking forward to meeting, she said, “I would say Ashley Gardner.” “And Suzie Bates too. I just want to have a conversation with her because I haven’t had that opportunity.”
This is the same Suzie Bates, on whom she hit a six to win her first ODI match, who is part of the defending champion team that defeated South Africa in the last Senior T20 World Cup final. But what does it mean to stand shoulder to shoulder with an opponent? And for all the stars in his eyes, Reineke is focused on the same thing as the rest of South Africa: winning a white-ball world title.
“That’s the main thing we’re talking about, even though we don’t want to think too far ahead,” she says. “The way the girls are training at the moment is crazy. There’s so much focus. Even when there’s a water break, we discuss cricket, and then we’re very focused and very specific. It gives me goosebumps because I think we have a really good chance of making it to the end.”
That sentiment is shared across this nation of 66 million, which has seen one team after another go into the tournament and raise hopes one after another. Often this leads to no results, but for young Reinecke this is too much of a burden to bear. Instead, she’s still basking in the feeling of playing alongside superstars she once asked for selfies, like Laura Wolvaardt, and with whom she might have shared the Olympic stage.
Tazmin Britts and Nadine de Klerk were also javelin throwers, revealing some of the strongest arms in the South African outfield.
Have all three compared notes? “We haven’t really talked about it,” Reineke says. “We had a brief conversation, but it wasn’t about technology or anything like that.” “We might need to have a little competition between each other and see!”
For the record, De Klerk threw the javelin nearly 45 meters and the Brits, who represented South Africa at the 2007 World Youth Championships and the 2009 African Junior Athletics Championships, has a best performance of 56.55 metres. There are more numbers for Reineke and the rest of us to think about.
Firdoz Munda is ESPNcricinfo’s senior correspondent for Africa and women’s cricket
