DANE VAN NIEKERK does a bit of everything – a quality right-handed batter and a leg break bowler. The South African has joined the Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) for the Massy Women's Caribbean Premier League T20 tournament and she is a worthy addition to the squad.

Van Niekerk, 30, had a solid international career from 2009-2021. She has fond memories of the Caribbean as in 2013 she grabbed a hat-trick, which led to figures of 5/28 against West Indies in St Kitts in a One-Day International. Van Niekerk became the first South African woman to snatch a hat-trick.

When van Niekerk retired she ended with 138 wickets in 107 ODIs and in T20 cricket she took 65 scalps in 86 matches.

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Van Niekerk together with captain Deandra Dottin, South African Mignon du Preez and Trinidadian Britney Cooper form a formidable TKR batting line-up which will make life difficult for all opposing bowlers.

Van Niekerk scored 2,175 runs in her ODI career at an average of 36.25, which included nine half centuries and one century. Her T20 batting statistics also makes good reading: she hit 1,877 runs at an average of 28.01 with ten half centuries. The South African kept the scoreboard ticking with a strike rate of 94.94 during her international T20 career and is hoping to continue striking the ball with similar regularity.

She has been playing a lot of T20 franchise cricket, lining up for the Adelaide Strikers Women in the Big Bash League in Australia and for the Oval Invincibles in The Hundred Women's tournament in England.

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