Peter’s leg-spin adds exciting new threat for Lions

Already packed to the gills with household names the Gauteng Lions may also have unearthed a gem in leg-spinner Nqaba Peter.

Only 21 years old Peter, who hails from East London, has been a revelation for the Lions in the CSA T20 Challenge, claiming 10 wickets in the five matches he has played, including Sunday’s effort of 3/22. His spell helped the Lions claim a dominant 10-wicket win against the North West Dragons, who were bowled out for just 85 at the Wanderers. 

Admittedly the foundation had already been laid by the time he was tossed the ball in the eleventh over by his captain Bjorn Fortuin, with the Dragons on 53/4. But Peter still delivered another performance that suggests his future is very bright. 

For a young bowler, to already have such control of one of the most difficult skills in the game is a mouthwatering prospect. Peter barely erred in terms of his line on Sunday, and while his lengths occasionally went awry — in one case leading to the wicket of Senuran Muthusamy, who pulled the short ball straight to Conor Esterhuizen on the square leg boundary — such mistakes are understandable. 

His wicket-taking prowess means he will be given all the room by the Lions to maintain that aggressive part of his game. Besides his leg break, he’s got a devastating ‘slider’ that seems to accelerate off the surface and is clearly one of the favourite weapons in Peter’s arsenal. 

Sunday’s was only his 10th T20 match, and he already has one appearance in the SA20 this year for the Paarl Royals — a match in which he picked up the wicket of Temba Bavuma. 

During the Lions week long road trip to the southern Cape, Peter took 3/14 against Boland in Paarl and followed that up with 4/7 against Western Province at Newlands. 

Obviously he’ll face greater scrutiny in the coming weeks as this competition reaches the playoff stage, but more-so in the next few seasons as he hopefully also gets to grips with the first class format, something in which he is yet to feature. 

The other player to make a big impression for the Lions on Sunday was Wiaan Mulder, who continues to remind the national selectors that he may be a viable option as a second seam bowling all-rounder for the T20 World Cup. Having performed superbly with the bat in the SA20, his good form has continued in this tournament and at the Wanderers he showed, his bowling remains an important part of his make up. 

He took the wickets of both North West openers, including the competition’s leading run-scorer Rubin Hermann, to immediately put the visitors on the back foot. It was a position from which they didn’t recover, with Peter bamboozling them in the second half of their innings.