Today’s Clive Rice? Wiaan Mulder Delivers Lions’ Greatest All-Round Match

By his own very high standards, Wiaan Mulder had a poor SA20 competition, but the Proteas all-rounder quickly showed that he remains a fantastic cricketer as soon as he returned to red-ball action, steering his Central Gauteng Lions team into the four-day final with an extraordinary display that saw him claim 12 wickets and score a century.

The Lions recorded an overwhelming victory by an innings and 270 runs in their last round-robin match of the CSA 4-Day Series, thrashing the embattled KZN Inland Tuskers team and gathering a massive haul of 27.98 bonus points at the Wanderers to finish first in the standings and ensure a home final against the Eastern Province Warriors.

Mulder set the tone for the victory on the first morning. With KZN Inland winning the toss and batting first, the pace bowler utterly devastated their batting with incredible career-best figures of 6.5-4-6-7, the third-best figures ever recorded in a four-day match at the famous Bullring. 

There has only been one seven-wicket haul for fewer runs in South African first-class history, and that was Bill Henderson's seven for four for North-Eastern Transvaal against Free State in Bloemftonein in 1937/38.

Mulder was at the crease on 4* at stumps on the first day with the Lions on 259 for three, and the second morning belonged to the 27-year-old as well as he plundered a 102-ball century, adding 103 runs off 91 deliveries in the session.

He fell shortly after lunch for a scintillating 115, but the Lions were bowling again just over an hour into the second session.

Mulder entered the attack in the eighth over, and took two wickets in his fifth over to set up another stellar performance with the ball. When Mulder ended the second day's play by claiming a wicket in the final over, he had taken five for 27 in 10.5 overs, making history.

It is probably the greatest ever all-round performance in the proud history of Lions/Gauteng/Transvaal cricket with only two other players previously scoring a century and taking 10 wickets in a match for the team, all-time greats in Aubrey Faulkner (110 & 10-166 v Western Province at Newlands in 1908/09) and Clive Rice (101 & 11-112 v Western Province at Wanderers in 1975/76). 

Only one other player has managed a similar feat in the top division of South African domestic first-class cricket, and that was the leg-spinning Test all-rounder Xenophon Balaskas, who scored 132 and took 11 wickets for Griqualand West against Eastern Province, and then made 101 and took 12 wickets versus Western Province in back-to-back matches in Kimberley in his golden summer of 1929/30.

It was an emphatic return to the limelight for Mulder, who scored just 137 runs in 10 innings for the Joburg Super Kings in the SA20, striking at 117.09, while the all-rounder took nine wickets but conceded 9.62 runs-per-over.

"I'm pretty happy because I've been working a long time on my game. I haven't played on this slope at the Wanderers for a while and it helped my shape a bit with the ball. I bowled one or two really good balls, and there were one or two soft dismissals as well," Mulder told SportsBoom.co.za. 

"Bowling with the white ball is hard, but here it felt like every spell could bring a wicket and I got on a run.  It's the best I've bowled this season, I haven't been that consistent. I lost it a bit getting carried away with the wobble-seam deliveries, because in England, if it swings and you give the batsmen width, they just hit you to the boundary." 

"The wobble-seam ball is more accurate, but with the red ball it's all about being more consistent, getting my wrist behind the ball and trying to hit the top of off-stump. I try and keep it very simple, that's all. I've worked on a couple of technical things with Allan Donald [Lions bowling coach] to become more efficient, making sure I don't cross my arms on my bowling path, keep to a straight path. That's been the key to moving the ball." 

"I felt good with the bat in the SA20, but I batted in a lot of tricky times and then when it doesn't come off, it looks bad. But I didn't feel like I was playing badly. I've been working for a very long time with Hashim Amla [Lions batting coach] on playing straight - hitting the ball to mid-off or past the bowler more often. That was my focus," Mulder said.

Today's Rice

The man who sprang to international prominence last year by declaring on a South African record 367 not out in a Test against Zimbabwe, rather than challenge Brian Lara's world record of 400 not out, is probably today's version of a Clive Rice, the great Transvaal and Nottinghamshire all-rounder who scored 26 331 first-class runs at 40.95 and took 930 wickets at 22.49, batting at number five and being a frontline pace bowler.

"Phew, Clive Rice is a legend! But I am trying to fill that sort of role and I love batting at five. It was my day with the ball, but I'm predominantly there to get runs and be very consistent with the ball. But I know I'm always in the game if there is something in the pitch." 

"Batting-wise, there's a lot of ebb and flow, but I don't want to just survive, I want to take the game forward and that's when I've been at my best. We had a target in terms of batting bonus points and I made it my job," Mulder said.

What tomorrow brings

The national team's focus this summer has been on T20 cricket, with the World Cup in that shortest format currently underway, and Mulder has played just three Tests and five ODIs since his batting epic in Zimbabwe in early July 2025.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring for Mulder, but he is remaining proactive, having signed for Essex for the new County season and still working on getting back into the Proteas T20 squad.

"I haven't played a lot this summer, which has been hard. That's a big reason why I want to go to England and it will be interesting to see how I go with Essex. I want to try and be in the Proteas squad for all formats and there are gaps here and there. I'm in the mix in the one-day team and I'm in the Test set-up; I need to figure out where I have the best chance of making the T20 team. I haven't always been sure where I fit in and need to figure that out," Mulder said.

Together with Taylor

A humble cricketer, Mulder has had to carry the burden of being touted for great things from when he was still a schoolboy at the renowned St Stithians College in Johannesburg. Tall Poppy Syndrome has meant that together with the rave reviews, he has had to take some totally unwarranted abuse. Even his finest hour was tainted, as some heavily criticised him for declaring on 367 not out instead of trying to claim the world record.

Which puts him together with another much-admired captain in Mark Taylor, who famously declared on 334 not out to not surpass Sir Donald Bradman's then-record Test score for Australia.

"Records are not my focus, I play to win, not for my myself. So I was a bit frustrated by the reaction, there was not enough focus on how well the team played. I don't go out there looking for personal accolades.

"But there is a lot of info out there for cricketers to read now and you can lose your way. You have to be careful what you read because sometimes it can be a real diversion for the team and myself," Mulder said.