Finding your way in 4-Day Cricket with Wihan Lubbe

Warriors batter, Wihan Lubbe, took us on a journey into the mind of a player at the 4-Day cricket level.

The left-hander emphasized how much of a step up 4-Day Cricket is and how players manoeuvre their way up in the longest format.

Red-ball cricket has been a lot harder for youngsters in South African domestic cricket. It’s either a young guy performs superbly in his first season of 4-Day cricket and then goes through a dip or they simply take a few seasons to adapt to the new level.

“It’s definitely a step up in intensity. You don’t get many bad balls,” Wihan Lubbe expressed to Cricket Fanatics Magazine.

“I guess it takes a bit of time to get used to it and to sort of figure out how you’re going to go about it. That’s why you see guys have a few good seasons and then struggle the next. The intensity is so high and it’s a mental game.” H

This season we saw Keegan Petersen, Marco Jansen, Sarel Erwee and Kyle Verreynne perform well relatively early in their Test careers. But it wasn’t as pretty when they started off their 4-Day cricket careers. It took Erwee six years of 3-Day semi-pro cricket to break through into 4-Day cricket at franchise level.

On the contrary, a youngster like Raynard van Tonder did exceptionally well in his first couple of seasons but has found it hard this past season. Lubbe gave us insight on what players have to overcome in their red-ball careers,

“I’ve definitely had conversations with them (Keegan, Sarel etc). I probably wouldn’t have needed to if you look at the names of the guys you’ve mentioned. They’ve had 2/3 seasons to go through dips at franchise cricket. They know how to react when it goes well and when it doesn’t go well,” he continued.

“You’ve mentioned Raynard for example, there was a lot of hype earlier around him, as there should be, he had a couple of really good seasons.

From a personal experience, there’s an expectation that comes with it. That expectation forms a different kind of pressure.

“These guys you’re mentioning now, maybe they have found a way to deal with it and maybe mentally they know how to ride the wave at the time of getting their chances.

“Raynard is going to come out of what I would call maybe an average season by his standards, but still not a terrible season. He’s going to come out the other side a much better player because he’s a hard-working kid, he’ll go back and work hard this winter. He’ll probably come back better next year.”

The Warriors have always been an environment where players finally find form and reach their full potential. Marco Jansen, Diego Rosier and Wihan Lubbe are some of the examples of players who had their best seasons after a move to the Gqeberha based team.

With Wihan Lubbe, the move down to the Eastern Cape amounted to a full run opportunity across all formats.

“Reeza and I were having a conversation around this specific topic earlier tonight. Leaving the Lions for me was leaving friendships of 5 to 8 years. It was a very difficult decision to take at the time.

“But it comes down to a cricketing decision and no matter how difficult it was it ended up paying dividends,” expressed Lubbe.

“The experiences that I’ve gone through and the extra help that I’ve received from the coaching staff and the players around in the Warriors team. It’s been invaluable. It’s been one of my more consistent seasons.

“I will never know how it would’ve turned out if I had stayed but I do know that if you gave me this season (21/22 season) two seasons ago saying that – ‘if you would leave you would get to this point – I probably would’ve taken it.”