Khaka shines in the shadows to keep the wall upright

What matters more: that Ayabonga Khaka is the first black woman to play 100 ODIs for South Africa, that she is the ninth woman to do so, or that she is the 34th player - regardless of race or gender - to reach the milestone?

As with so much about cricket in South Africa, which remains as fractured along every conceivable faultline as the rest of this malformed and stunted society, it depends on who you ask. For some, the first element of that hat-trick is the most important. For others, it's the last. Still, others, most of them mercifully a smattering nearing the end of their shuffle off this mortal coil, think none of the above matters because Khaka is not a man.

Ah yes, them: men. Jacques Kallis earned a record 323 ODI caps for South Africa, or more than twice as many as his female counterpart, Mignon du Preez, who has 154. Five other men have played more than 200 matches in the format for South Africa.

These facts are, of course, shaped by others. Sachin Tendulkar's 463 ODIs is more than anyone else - 135 more than Kallis, which includes the latter's five for Africa and ICC XIs. Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami are the only women to have played 200. India have played more ODIs than any other men's team, but England, New Zealand and Australia, in that order, have played more women's ODIs than India.

Khaka's place in all that is impossible to isolate. What is indisputable is that she has been among South Africa's finest seamers. Among those who bowled 500 or more overs for South Africa, only Shabnim Ismail and Marizanne Kapp have taken more wickets and banked lower economy rates in ODIs than Khaka. Of all the 962 women who have bowled in ODIs, just 15 have taken more wickets than Khaka and only eight of them have been seamers.

So when Khaka was named in the XI for Wednesday's match against Sri Lanka in Potchefstroom, South Africa did not pick someone because they were black or because she needed one more cap to reach a milestone. They picked a player they knew they could depend on because of what she had achieved. They picked a champion. But often she goes unrecognised because of what happens around her. Wednesday's game was a case in point.

First Laura Wolvaardt made 184 not out, the highest score in an ODI by a woman for South Africa and for the next hour or three the fourth-highest overall. Then Chamari Athapaththu scored an undefeated 195, Sri Lanka's biggest innings and the third-highest all told, which pushed Wolvaardt's effort to fourth place. The Lankans successfully chased a target of 300 or more for the first time, aided and abetted by what will be seen as a choke of monumental proportions even by South Africa's standards but which was in fact a calamity of complacency. "I think with 300 on the board you always fancy yourself with a chance of winning," Wolvaardt told reporters. Given those circumstances, the fact that Khaka had Hansima Karunaratne and Kavisha Dilhari caught behind in the space of three deliveries sailed so far below the radar it might as well have been a submarine.

Four days previously in Kimberley, Khaka took three top-six wickets for 28, but the focus was firmly on Wolvaardt's 110 not out. In Benoni in December, Khaka claimed 3/15 as Bangladesh collapsed for 100. But that was after Wolvaardt had made 126 and Tazmin Brits had scored 118, and the pair of them had shared 243 - South Africa's record partnership for any wicket and the fifth-highest opening stand ever. In a World Cup match in Hamilton in March 2022, Khaka dismissed Sophie Devine and Amy Satterthwaite in her return of 3/31. But Kapp was credited with clinching the win for her 2/44 and 34 not out. Khaka took 4/29 in the T20 World Cup semi-final against England at Newlands in February last year. Only for Brits' 55-ball 68 to steal the show and the player-of-the-match prize.

This is not whataboutery or moaning. It's how cricket works. Some players are bricks, others the cement that holds the wall upright. Khaka is export quality cement; lean, angular and unassuming, swooning into her run and delivering accurately more often than not. Then turning on her heel to do it again and again and again and again and again... There is no drama, no ego, no strut.

"She was a bit emotional at the start of the game, which doesn't happen very often with Aya; she's soft-spoken and quiet," Wolvaardt said. "I don't think she gets the credit she deserves. She's been such an integral part of this team for so many years and has delivered in crucial times for us within those 100 games."

Doubtless Wolvaardt spoke sincerely, but you wonder what the owner of cricket's silkiest cover drive makes of a player like Khaka, who tends to shine in the shadows. Wolvaardt faced 30 balls in the last 10 overs of South Africa's innings on Wednesday. She scored 58 off those deliveries, 42 of them - almost three quarters - in six fours and two sixes. But, according to her, she "just whacked some at the end and was able to find a couple of boundaries".

Can Athapaththu, who on Wednesday unfurled the sweetest timing and deployed the decision-making skills of a general at the crease and while leading her team in the field, empathise with the Khakas of the game? How could she when she has her eye focused on the big picture firmly enough to say her retirement would come "very soon", that "I want to see my team in the semi-final of this [year's] World Cup; that's my wish", and that her landmark innings was not her most important. Instead it was her unbeaten 178 in a losing cause against Australia in Bristol during the 2017 World Cup: "After that I got an opportunity to play franchise cricket, where I learnt a lot. I learnt from other players, world class players, and I shared my knowledge."

It's difficult to think like that, nevermind talk in those terms, when you're concentrating on keeping the wall upright. Wolvaardt and Athapaththu are among the best of bricks. They should know that, without cement, bricks are rubble.