It had only been 742 days since the birth of Kwena Tshegofatso Maphaka when the game of cricket saw its greatest transformation since the introduction of overarm bowling. Nearly sixteen years later, Maphaka is included in this trend. As if that weren’t reason enough to celebrate, he turned 18 on Monday, April 8, while playing for the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League.
Although he is the youngest, Maphaka is not the only IPL birthday boy this year. Last week, Nishant Sindhu of the Chennai Super Kings and Swastik Chikara of the Delhi Capitals both turned 20 on Wednesday. In just twenty-eight days, Dewald Brevis, a fellow countryman and teammate from Maphaka, Suyash Sharma of the Kolkata Knight Riders, and Nitish Reddy of Sunrisers Hyderabad will all turn 21.
Reddy is scheduled to do this on May 26, which also happens to be the day of the IPL final and Sunil Narine’s 36th birthday for KKR. The day before the match, Kagiso Rabada of the Punjab Kings will turn 29. The day after, Saurav Chauhan of Royal Challengers Bangalore and Shahrukh Khan of the Gujarat Titans will turn 24 and 29, respectively.
During the competition, thirty-one of the 243 players who are currently signed with the teams will make another lap around the sun. Maphaka is one of the seven that have previously done so. Twelve will reach or surpass 30 years old, while eighteen will still be in their 20s.
The oldest birthday boy of this IPL is Sikandar Raza of Punjab, who turns 38 on April 24. Rohit Sharma of Mumbai is next; on April 30 he turns 37. Raza studied in Scotland after being born in Pakistan. A year or so after Maphaka’s birth, in March and April of 2007, he made his list A and first-class debuts in Zimbabwe, when his cricket career really took off. Before Maphaka could catch its breath, Sharma participated in 14 under-19 international matches and three list A matches. Four days after the South African turned three months old, he made his first-class debut.
Since the IPL is currently in its 17th season, it hasn’t been around for the 20 to 30 years that demographers believe to be sufficient to qualify as a generation. However, there is a clear generational gap among the participants. Before making an appearance in the inaugural IPL, which began 12 days before Sharma turned 21 years old, he had amassed 20 first-class caps. It’s likely that Maphaka cannot recall anything from before the competition. He is not the youngest player in the IPL; eight other 17-year-olds, all younger than Maphaka, have tread the most prestigious stage of cricket, including Prayas Ray Barman, who was 16 when he made his debut for RCB in 2019. The next 17-year-old in the IPL may have been born after the competition, which could cause it to check itself in the mirror for wrinkles and gray hair.
The IPL is a difficult arena in which to make your debut, as Maphaka has found out. Even for someone who had just finished the under-19 World Cup, when he was rightfully named player of the tournament after taking 21 wickets at a 9.71 average. In the six IPL overs that he has bowled, Maphaka has been hit for 89 runs, earning him one wicket and ten dot balls.
When Dale Steyn commented that he was “realising the difference between U19 and PRO league” following Maphaka’s first four overs, in which they lost 66 runs to SRH’s formidable batting lineup, he was accurate, if a little harsh. fire baptism.” Tragically, as was to be expected, Steyn received harsh public criticism in the still deeply divided country of South Africa. Five days later, one headline in Maphaka said that Yashasvi Jaiswal of the Rajasthan Royals had “silenced his critics” after he was featured on the covers. The fact that he had given up 23 runs in two overs was cleverly overlooked.
In the IPL, at least, Maphaka has not yet been hit for six. Anrich Nortje of Delhi, on the other hand, has sailed for 17 in four games. However, Nortje has taken five more wickets and bowled twice as many overs than Maphaka, with an economy rate that is 1.40 higher. He also has a great deal more experience because he is over 12 years older.
Given that he was born in November, Nortje would also have celebrated some of his thirty birthdays in a dressing room—just not during the IPL. How was the 18th cricket match at Maphaka marked? The chief executive of his local team, the Lions, Jono Leaf-Wright, personally messaged him after he tweeted about it on social media. The squad would “have a team celebration and a cake-cutting, just as we do with all the birthdays we have for the boys,” a Mumbai representative confirmed to Cricbuzz on Monday. In the team’s daily video journal, released on Monday, there was evidence supporting the latter. Unfortunately, South Africans at home are unable to watch it since an Indian cell number is needed to have access.
Mark Boucher’s birthday present to Maphaka on the day prior may have been the nicest one possible given the circumstances. After two brutal games, Maphaka was kept out of Sunday’s Mumbai vs. Delhi match at the Wankhede.
He is a good young bowler who will get much better, and the IPL will be crucial to his development. But for a day, at least, he didn’t have to worry about anything but turning eighteen, even with the best cricket show in the world going on all around him.
