Proteas womens cricketer and player with the most matches as captain in ODIs and T20s, Mignon du Preez shared some of the lessons she learnt in her career during a webinar about women and girls in cricket.
The webinar was hosted by KFC on 31 August and entitled KFC Women’s Month Webinar: Celebrating Women Making a Difference in South African Communities.
“The first [lesson] I want to touch on is teamwork,” Du Preez told roughly 100 people watching the webinar.
“I think teamwork is crucial for success and as the saying goes, there is no I in team. Although cricket might be an individual sport, it is played in a team environment and you can’t do it on your own. You need to find a way to celebrate each other’s successes as if they were your own.”
Du Preez’s next lesson was to have a strong support structure as a sports player. She described these as people who are unsung heroes who help professional athletes in their journey to the top.
“In your career you might actually have more failed attempts than successes and you need coaches, friends and family around you that will encourage you to keep going when you feel like giving up,” she explained.
Persistence was Du Preez’s third life lesson. Although it does not guarantee success, giving up guarantees failure, she said.
Furthermore, with this mindset losing is not an option. You either win or you learn.
“The next [lesson] is attitude. I think attitude can be contagious and you need to make sure you have got a positive attitude and that it’s worth catching. Then, there is a saying that practice makes perfect but I actually like to differ. Only perfect practice makes perfect but practice makes permanent.”
Du Preez’s fifth and last life lesson means players need to be aware of the quality of their training, because learning the wrong technique can leave one at a disadvantage for years to come.
“You need to be concerned about the quality of your training rather than just the quality. If you keep practising the wrong thing, you will actually perfect it the wrong way.”
