Assupol TuksCricket and winning have become synonymous as hardly a year goes by with the men’s team, not winning one or more tournaments.

The club has now set itself a new challenge for 2021. It is to see if they can get their women’s team to be equally as competitive.

New Assupol Tuks women’s head coach, Lerato Malesa, however, believes the saying that Rome was not built in a day. To her, it is all about one small step at a time. Her first goal is to identify the players she can go to war with.

“We recruited quite actively. It led to us signing 11 provincial players (6 Northerns, 3 Limpopo and 2 Mpumalanga) to play for Tuks. I will not mind if a few more players join the club. It is never good when a team can only rely on one or two players to win games. The more players we have, the bigger rivalry to play is going to be. Hopefully, it creates a situation where no player can afford to be complacent,” Malesa explained.

She expects that Robyn Searle, who has played for South Africa’s women’s team and Tebogo Macheke, who is part of the current national squad to lead by example.

“Our captain Robyn is a batting allrounder who loves nothing more than to get the numbers on the scoreboard to tick over. Tebogo is wicketkeeper with a really safe pair of hands who knows how to score runs,” Malesa remarked.

The AssupolTuks women has even an international player in their midst. The 16-year-old Deeksha Sharma from India will be playing for them. Her dad is a lawyer it means she gets to play cricket all over the world.

Last year she played for Team Brunt that won the ECB School Games in Loughborough. They defeated Team Knight in the final. The competition brought together 41 of the best young female cricketers in Britain.

Malesa is genuinely passionate about coaching.

“When I coach, it is not like I am working. It is more of a calling. That sense of achievement you get when a player masters a new technique is something money can’t buy. Coaching is never only about winning. I want to make a difference in a player’s life. If a player leaves a training session feeling they have learned something, I consider it to be a job well done,” she concluded.

Female players who want to join the Assupol Tuks team are asked to mail their personal details to delliahlerato@gmail.com.

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