A tennis dream, a coach who saw 140 in a body clocking 127, and the season opener that answered Rajasthan Royals’ biggest question.
Growing up, Nandre Burger wanted to be Roger Federer. The best part of his childhood was spent watching countless videos of the Swiss, trying to absorb the grace and the geometry. Then a back injury ended the tennis. He flirted with squash. His father made him try cricket.
Up until that point, Burger’s association with the game was mostly his backyard wall. When he wasn’t volleying a tennis ball against it, he would draw stumps on the surface and try to copy Dale Steyn. He played cricket with his friends, but beyond that, he had no ambition to be a professional cricketer. He was fifteen when he enrolled at Wits University to study sports psychology. It was there that he met Neil Levenson.