Exclusive: Hendricks' mentoring of Mulder helped elevate his game

WHEN Wiaan Mulder's professional career started, he was still a high school student at St Stithians. His skill was good enough to start his professional career with the Lions.

However, at 18 years old at the time, Mulder had a long way to go and entering the Lions dressing room would have been intimidating for any youngster.

Mulder needed a mentor, an experienced Lions player that would take him under his wing and show him the ropes as a professional cricketer.

Lions captain, Dominic Hendricks, became that mentor for Mulder.

In an exclusive interview with Independent Media, Hendricks highlighted how Mulder's preparation was undercooked when he burst onto the professional set-up and how their chat helped him (Mulder) raise his training standards to meet what is required to succeed at the highest level.

"I think the biggest thing was someone needed to mentor him and at the time, walking into the dressing room basically as a high school kid, you don't really know where to look. We found a lot of commonality in a lot of areas, and I think that's where the friendship started," Hendricks told.

"Just getting him through figuring out what he needs to do at training was a big thing because you could see he was still training like a kid, where there was no real purpose behind training. He'd rock up and he'd get out a couple of times and he'd walk out of training.

"I actually distinctly remember telling him one day, and I think he still mentions it to a lot of people today, that we had this one session and he just got out about six times and I just asked him, 'Are you satisfied with that? Are you proud of how you trained?'  

"And he just looked and was like, 'What do you mean?' And I was like, 'well, if you're going to train like that, then you're going to have no chance'. 'I mean, you got out six times. It's not a great reflection of sort of what you're trying to do and what standards you're trying to set'.

"I think ever since that day, his training has changed massively and he's held his training to a very high standard."

Almost a decade later, Hendricks' influence has played a hand in Mulder becoming the player that he is today for South Africa, the backbone of the team.

Hendricks believes that Mulder always had the talent but needed backing and experience. With Shukri Conrad in charge, Mulder has received the backing, and having played County cricket over the last couple of years, Mulder has gathered the necessary experience.

"Right now it looks like he's just enjoying his cricket as much as he can. I mean, he's been playing some really good cricket over the past couple of years and I think the dividends are being paid now by Cricket South Africa for the faith that they showed in him many, many years ago when he was a youngster," said Hendricks. 

"I mean, he walked into our dressing room (at the Lions), I think it wasn't long after that, in his first season or two, he'd already done the South African colours. He's flourished and blossomed nicely and he's been playing some really good cricket over the past two years, I would say. 

"He came over to Leicester and did quite well. So I think all that experience that he learnt over the last couple of seasons, it's really showing off right now. He's batting absolutely brilliantly. There were signs even in the World Test Championship Final of that."

Mulder's unbeaten 367 in the second Test in Bulawayo propelled the Proteas to a record-breaking innings and 236 run victory over Zimbabwe at the Queens Sports Club in on Tuesday.