Matthew Breetzke shows he can get past 30-40 as he scored 150 on ODI debut to break records and signal the start of something special
Danyal Rasool10-Feb-2025South Africa’s travel arrangements to Pakistan were a good reminder of why large groups are such a bother. The SA20 threw a spanner in the works in terms of the player availability pool. Lungi Ngidi and Tabraiz Shamsi weren’t initially part of the squad, and then tacked on as late additions; without them, they wouldn’t have been able to scrape 11 players together today. At one point against New Zealand, when Ngidi went off, they still needed fielding coach Wanele Gwavu to make up the numbers. On Sunday, Corbin Bosch, Tony de Zorzi and Kwena Maphaka were on a plane to Pakistan, but none of them were available today.Fewer than half the players in this squad will be part of South Africa’s Champions Trophy party. It is the selectorial equivalent of looking through a threadbare kitchen cupboard and throwing all available ingredients into the pot in the hope of achieving a serviceable stew. Except, if that metaphor is to be tormented further, no one likes experimental stew early on a Monday morning – this is the only day game of the series, the PCB ostensibly putting it on to put their operational robustness to the test at a different time of day.As if things couldn’t get more challenging, South Africa lost the toss at 9am, when the winter morning haze hadn’t cleared, and were put in to bat at the most challenging time of the day. So unfamiliar is much of the squad that 26-year-old Matthew Breetzke, opening with captain Temba Bavuma, appeared to be one of the senior players in the side, until you realised this was his ODI debut.Related
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For the first half-hour, he looked a debutant, too. New Zealand, more seasoned at this level and with a crushing win under their belt, smelled blood, and like a shiver of sharks pressing a salmon cluster to the surface, began to suffocate Breetzke. Will O’Rourke, in particular, was testing him, pushing Breetzke back using the bounce, rapping him on the gloves as an early shot across the bows. The following over, he cut Breetzke in half, hitting the top of the inside edge of the bat with extra bounce. Had New Zealand been more proactive about bringing a short leg in, this story may have ended right here.In a classic telltale sign of his struggle against the bounce, Breetzke began to lean across to try and whip it behind square on the on side – the equivalent of sweeping against spin when it’s hard to determine which way it’s turning. Not that plenty were connecting; he scored just nine off the first 21 balls, and wasn’t in control of many. As the sun battled to burn off the morning haze, he was also in a battle of his own. He attacked hardly any of the first 30 balls he faced, and was in control of less than 75%.”I definitely think that first hour was the hardest batting conditions all day,” Breetzke said at the press conference afterwards – he was there because he scored 150 by the end of it, and we’ll talk about it in a bit. “The wicket was tacky and overhead conditions were tough with the new ball, with the bit of mist in the air. My mindset was just to get through those first ten with that new ball and kick on.”There’s a reason Breetzke is rated highly within his own team, a List A average of under 30 doesn’t quite do justice to his talent and mentality. At SA20 2024, when he was among the best batters in the early stages of the tournament, his team-mate Keshav Maharaj said Breetzke’s mindset was “similar to Virat Kohli’s” and earmarked him as “leadership material for South Africa”.
“If you wind him up, you will probably see the better side of him. It’s such a blessing to see someone of his age do that. I think he is set for a long career in international cricket”Keshav Maharaj on Matthew Breetzke
“There was a story of someone saying he is only good for 30 and 40, so it was a nice way of motivating him,” Maharaj had told ESPNcricinfo, presciently. “If you wind him up, you will probably see the better side of him. It’s such a blessing to see someone of his age do that. I think he is set for a long career in international cricket.”The sun was beginning to warm the surface up and the crowd, surprisingly strong for a day match on a Monday between two sides neither of which was Pakistan, began to duck for shade. Breetzke, though, was beginning to shine under the spotlight, and for a player often accused of throwing away good starts, only gaining in strength. A six off Mitchell Santner just after drinks signalled a shift in intent in an innings that developed like rungs on a stepladder, hitting various gears as his side’s requirements changed.It allowed him to show his full repertoire, but the onslaught at the very end was reminiscent of Glenn Phillips against Pakistan. O’Rourke, his torturer-in-chief in the morning, went short, but Breetzke’s innings – and perhaps Breetzke the man – had come of age by now. He rocked back and lashed him behind deep point for the boundary that got him to a debut ODI hundred. Like a boy who has bested his childhood bully, he lived like a man liberated.It started scratchily for Matthew Breetzke but he found a way to stay in and make it count•AFP/Getty ImagesIt was high-risk, but in this kind of devastating touch, Breetzke found a way of making it look safe. He attacked 40% of his final 30 deliveries, almost three times up on his first 30, and yet remained in control of a whopping 90%. Little in his List A career, with a strike rate a shade under 79, could have prepared New Zealand for the withering assault to follow.Breetzke, though, is defensive of his record, his late bloom indicative of the value of giving young cricketers time to understand their game before throwing them in the deep end. “I started off my one-day career quite slowly and we played on tough wickets, hence my List A numbers are not the best,” he said. “I take pride in my white-ball cricket, and in one-day cricket, it’s probably the best I’ve batted.”And he was batting like it. He went from 100 to 150 in just 20 deliveries – the hapless Ben Sears singled out for punishment – and made history of his own, becoming the first ODI debutant to score 150. It culminated in a 20-run 45th over that requires little editing to serve as a compilation reel of its own. Sears tried to target his body, but he manufactured room off consecutive balls to muscle it to either side of the wicket for boundaries.When Sears went short, Breetzke reminded him that it no longer worked, scything him over point for four, before, as if to rub it in, crunching the final delivery over deep third for the six that got him to 150. The man who scratched his way to his first few runs on what seemed an inauspicious batting morning may end up looking back on it as the dawn of a very long career.