South Africa have selected 28-year-old batter Lesego Senokwane, who has a first-class average of 31.22 to make his Test debut in their second game against Zimbabwe. Here's why.
The Proteas were put in to bat on day one of the Test in Bulawayo, having won the previous game by 328 runs. With several members of their World Test Championship winning side unavailable, the series has provided South Africa with an opportunity to test less experienced players in their XI. The first match saw them give debuts to Dewald Brevis, teenager Lhuan-dre Pretorius and Codi Yusuf, while Corbin Bosch and Kwena Maphaka also came into the side.
For the second Test, Wiaan Mulder took over the captaincy duties in place of Keshav Maharaj, who was himself leading in the absence of Temba Bavuma. Maharaj suffered a groin strain in the first Test, with Senuran Muthusamy coming into the side in his place. The two other changes South Africa made were to bring in Senokwane and Prenelan Subrayen for Matthew Breetzke and Maphaka respectively.
2nd Test, Zimbabwe vs South Africa
vs
- Ball by ball Over
Who is Lesego Senokwane?
At 28, Senokwane has been a regular in South African domestic cricket since 2016. He plays for North West in domestic competitions, and was selected for South Africa U19s in 2015 and played eight youth ODIs against Bangladesh U19s that year, making a top score of 26. His call-up to the senior Proteas side for the Zimbabwe series is his first inclusion in a senior national squad.
First in 70 years: South Africa all-rounder achieves rare distinction on Test captaincy debut
Over his career, Senokwane has accumulated a batting average of 31.22 in first-class cricket, with a high score of 205 – which he made last year playing for Free State against North West, in an innings in which the next-highest score was 38. In the 2024-25 CSA four-day series division one, Senokwane was the fourth-highest run-scorer, making 559 runs at 55.90 including two hundreds and two fifties. Senokwane has also taken 14 wickets in 51 first-class games, bowling handy right-arm off breaks.
Earlier this year, Senokwane was selected for South Africa A's tour of the West Indies. He played two first-class games on that tour, and had a high score of 28 across his three innings. Overall, he has seven hundreds and eight fifties to his name in first-class cricket from 51 games before his Test debut.
The right-handed batter does not have an impressive record in white-ball cricket, averaging 23.35 from 55 List A matches and 17.53 from 37 T20s.
Why have South Africa selected Senokwane for the second Zimbabwe Test?
Senokwane was given his Test debut in place of Breetzke, who scored 13 and 1 in the first match of the series. Breetzke made his Test debut last year, and his 13 in the first innings of the first Zimbabwe Test was his highest score from his three innings so far.
Ahead of the series, Tony de Zorzi was favoured to come back into the side with Ryan Rickelton absent. De Zorzi suffered a thigh injury during South Africa's series against Pakistan last year, and subsequently lost his place when Rickelton scored 259 in the New Year's Test, in combination with de Zorzi having scored 44 runs across his six Test innings before that game. Breetzke was selected for the first Test alongside De Zorzi to get a look at him given his only Test appearance came back in October.
Breetzke's failures in the first Test, however, gave an opportunity for South Africa to look at Senokwane. The 28-year-old fell lbw to Wellington Masakadza for 3 off 36 balls on his debut, with South Africa slipping to 28-2 before Wiaan Mulder scored a counter-attacking century on captaincy debut.
Image credit Cricket South Africa
Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.
