Betrothed Burger back to bowl

Rather than bemoan his misfortune after picking up yet another injury, Nandre Burger spent part of his nine months on the sidelines being productive — which included getting engaged. 

He popped the question to Ashleigh back in April. “It was as good a time as ever to do it,” he said . “My fiancée said it was a pretty good time also.”

Burger admits he didn’t miss cricket, and though nine months is a long time to be out — especially as his stress fracture occurred at a time when he’d just burst onto the international scene — it offered plenty of time for reflection. 

Besides playing three Tests, Burger also made his T20 and ODI debuts against India in 2023, and was included as a standby player for the T20 World Cup squad in 2024. Along with that came an Indian Premier League (IPL) contract and another in Major League Cricket in the US. 

However, rather than lap it up, Burger found it all wearisome. “I won’t say I fell out of love with the game, but when I started for South Africa, I was different to the cricketer I was in the West Indies and then in Sharjah [nine months later]. It took a big mental toll on me to be away from home for seven to eight months, being in different leagues or on tour. I’d never experienced that before.” 

Burger is careful about sounding spoilt. He’d lived so many dreams: bowling in a Test, and winning that Test, dismissing Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill, and then sharing a key partnership with the bat in a series win against the West Indies.

But his enjoyment of the game had diminished. Training and playing became monotonous. “There were times when I felt like after six months of just playing cricket, ‘do I really need to bowl at nets today?’ You wake up, train, go to bed. It felt like that every day. It was such a repetitive cycle.”

As his return to play neared, Burger also changed gears in regard to regarding how he thought about the sport. “Now it’s about finding ways to make sure it feels like the game you played when you were growing up — you always want to have that feeling, or else why are you actually playing it?

It’s exciting to see so many guys have the same passion about bowling fast as I do — that’s a really cool thing.

—  Nandre Burger, cricketer

“I worked on how to manage that better, to keep myself grounded and ensure when I wake up I’d have the same energy every morning, to ensure when I train and play, I do so at the right intensity. I missed the game when I started bowling again, but that was six-and-a-half months after I’d been injured already. That is such a long time, anyone is going to start missing the game.” 

Having last played in an ODI in Sharjah in September last year, the next time the 29-year-old left-arm fast bowler featured in a professional cricket match was at the Oakland Coliseum in California in June. A lengthy journey both literally and figuratively.  “It was actually kinda cool.

“I’m not a baseball watcher, but just seeing how they celebrate the history of the players, the old jersey numbers hung up around the stadium, was really cool.”

Burger appreciated making his return to bowling away from the spotlight. The Super Kings, which owns the Texas franchise Burger represented in the MLC, gave him sufficient time to build up his workloads and strengthen his body.

“Coming off quite a hectic back injury, it was more about finding confidence in my body. You’ve done the rehab, you’re fit to play, passed all the tests, the scans are all clear, but it is still about trusting your body.”

He got through six matches for Texas, and played in the Proteas’ opening match in the triangular series in Harare on Monday, taking 1/22 against Zimbabwe.

While grateful to be back, Burger finds himself in the middle of a very serious competition for starting places, with South Africa’s fast bowling stocks healthier than they’ve been at any stage since Shukri Conrad took over as head coach.

Besides Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen — neither of whom are in Zimbabwe — Lungi Ngidi, Kwena Maphaka, Corbin Bosch, Codi Yusuf, and another injury-returnee Gerald Coetzee are all options Conrad can consider.

“We all talk to each other. I don’t see any of the other guys as a threat [for a spot] nor am I stressed by it. It’s exciting to see so many guys have the same passion about bowling fast as I do — that’s a really cool thing.

“Every time Shukri picks a team, he believes it’s the best team to win that particular game; every player has bought into that. There’s such healthy competition you don’t find guys being upset that one guy is ahead of him. It’s more a case of ‘well you’re the guy who’s going to win us the game today, and we back you to do that’. Our conversations as bowlers are based around ‘how are we going to [to win]’. It’s a healthy rivalry.”

Burger can comfortably buy into that competition because of the mental break from the game his long-term injury allowed. Time away for reflection, to spend time with family and to get engaged has made him stronger holistically. 

Asked if making his Test debut was more nerve-racking than popping the question, Burger laughed: “She might not like this answer, but I think I was more nervous making my debut... Hopefully she appreciates the honesty.”