Cricket star Van Niekerk, 29, "knew straight away" her hopes of playing in New Zealand were over as soon as she "heard a snap," which turned out to be an ankle fracture.
The all-rounder was on a high after skippering the Oval Invincibles to the inaugural edition of The Hundred last year, where she was also top run-scorer.“I do a lot of stupid things but probably that wasn’t one of the best decisions I could make so close to a World Cup,” she told The Guardian. “[Wife and team-mate] Marizanne always tells me I’m a loose head.
It was an honest, freak accident. It was raining and I was on the wooden deck outside the house. I needed to go down to feed my dogs and I tried to climb down from the edge, and as I did that my feet gave way."I heard a snap, and I knew straight away that was my World Cup.
I still hate myself to this day. If I’d just made one split-second decision different I could have been there and maybe helped my team, made a bit of a difference.
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