Follow UsSince Jacques Kallis, South Africa have not had a game-changing batting all-rounder in their ranks. There have been a few who have come along the way, but no player has stuck around long enough.
Wiaan Mulder's emergence does not solve that issue just yet, but the wheels are now set in motion.
Over the last couple of years, Mulder has scored crucial runs and picked up plenty of wickets, ensuring that South Africa are well and truly on their way to finding yet another gem of an all-rounder. Mulder's improvement has flown under the radar big time, but his ton in the first Test and a triple ton in the second one — albeit against a comparatively weak side in Zimbabwe — has ensured that he's now no longer overlooked.
Also Read: Every Record Wiaan Mulder Broke In His Historic 367* Against Zimbabwe
While the triple century is certainly special, what it's done is further vindicate the faith shown in Mulder's potential by the South African management. Since 2024, Mulder has three centuries and a fifty in 13 innings, averaging over 90 in this period.
With his medium pace bowling, Mulder has given South African pace battery a lot of cushion, operating as a fourth (sometimes third) seamer. And he is not someone who would just come into the attack and get the lower-order wickets. In fact, 21 of his 35 wickets have been against batters from the top five, and he has done so at an average of 24.5.
His bowling comes as no surprise, as in his first major tournament for the Proteas — the Under-19 World Cup in 2016 — he finished as his side's leading wicket-taker with 11 scalps at an economy rate of 3.47.
That was good enough for Lions to fast-track him into the team as he would go on to make his first-class debut later that year, scoring his maiden ton in just his third match. Not just that, he picked up a seven-wicket haul in just his second game. After that, a South Africa A call-up ensued.
While performances for the A side were not as expected, he continued to pile on the runs and wickets for the Lions. On the back of such performances, he made it to the Test side in 2019, but he played as a bowling all-rounder. In fact, before he moved up to three in November 2024, he had never batted in that position in domestic cricket — neither for the Lions nor for the A side. It's now a position in which he averages 80.33 in Test cricket.
As far as his bowling his concerned, Mulder's skills have come in handy on a couple of occasions - no more than the six wickets against the West Indies last year at the Providence Stadium in a low-scoring 40-run win.
With bat, meanwhile, even in the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia recently, while he did not score big, he absorbed the pressure in both innings, playing 44 and 50 deliveries, not giving away easy wickets to the world-class Australian bowling line-up. The 61-run stand he shared with Aiden Markram in the fourth innings, after the early fall of Ryan Rickelton, was crucial to killing nerves and setting up the historic chase for the Proteas.
If there was any doubt over his position in the side before the series, he has put it to rest with a couple of audacious knocks against Zimbabwe, one of them as captain of the side. And an unselfish one at that, given that he could have easily broken Brian Lara's 400*.
Every cricketer hopes to adapt to every situation and the demands of the team, and the 27-year-old in his 20-odd Tests has gone from a bowler who can bat to a top three batter who can bowl.
While South Africa are in the middle of a series that does not feature some of their big guns, including their skipper Tamba Bavuma and frontline pacer Kagiso Rabada, Mulder, like them, is slowly becoming an indispensable part of this Proteas team.