Rassie van der Dussen
Rassie van der Dussen - South African batsman
Rassie van der Dussen (full name Hendrik Erasmus van der Dussen) was born on February 7, 1989 in Pretoria, South Africa. He plays for the South African national team and the local Highveld Lions team. He was named one of the five best cricketers in the country in 2008, and he won the Cricket South Africa’s Rookie of the Year nomination a year later.
Unlike many colleagues, van der Dussen never considered his professional path easy or quick:
“I started at a cricket club when I was in high school. When you play with adults, you learn difficult lessons more intensely. This is what taught me control. I cannot call myself a virtuoso. I do not like to pull before handling the ball. Not because I can’t, but because this is not my plan A. You begin to understand such things only when you train a lot and often find yourself in difficult game situations. ”
Rassie was officially included in the Knight Riders’ (Cape Town) in August 2017, playing in the T20 Global League. However, just a couple of months later, the competition was first postponed and then canceled altogether. Focusing on the Sunfoil Series, van der Dussen rose to the top of the competition quickly, making 959 runs in just ten games. At the CSA T20 Challenge, which started in 2018, the player also performed well, entering the list of the best batsmen (348 runs in 10 matches). By April 2021, van der Dussen had already become a player in the base of the Gauteng team.
At the same time, Rassie tried his hand at T20. He received an invite from the Vancouver Knights in June 2018 and subsequently became the best batsman of the first Global T20 Canada draw (255 runs in eight matches). In the same month, it was announced that he would play for the Highveld Lions in the 2018-2019 season.
Van der Dussen joined the Jozi Stars in October, which were to play in the Mzansi Super League T20. The following season, he combined playing for the Canadian team and the Jozi Stars so successfully that he attracted the attention of the Islamabad United, who selected him during an additional draft round to participate in the next season of the local Super League.
The batsman got a chance to play the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots (Caribbean Premier League) in July 2020, but he was forced to miss the draw due to technical problems.
Van der Dussen almost never left South Africa for the sake of performing in foreign clubs. The only exceptions were the seasons in which he played for the Canadians and Pakistanis in T20:
- the Highveld Lions (2011-2021);
- the North West (2012);
- the Titans (2008-2011);
- the Jozi Stars (2018);
- the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots (2018).
Rassie van der Dussen: game statistics
| Competition Category | Test | ODI | T20I | FC |
| Matches | 9 | 23 | 20 | 127 |
| Wounds | 531 | 890 | 628 | 8078 |
| Average performance | 35.40 | 80.90 | 41.86 | 42.74 |
| Best Score | 98 | 123 | 74 | 175 |
Rassie van der Dussen: performing internationally
Rassie van der Dussen was invited to the national team in 2018 as South Africa was preparing to play in the T20I against Zimbabwe. The debut came in October, and Rassi was included in the ODI team for the matches against Pakistan in January. He scored a hundred in just seven runs in the first game, ending the draw with 241 runs.
The performance of van der Dussen made such an impression on the headquarters that it was decided to leave him in the team for the spring series of matches against Sri Lanka. He was named to the South African squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup with 112 runs in the games and played in test matches against England for the first time in December. In March 2020, the batsman’s contract with the national team was renewed.
A year later, van der Dussen scored the top 100 in the ODI, becoming the oldest batsman in South African cricket history to credit for such an achievement.
