Kovsie Netball Team centre and wing attack player
Khanyisa Chawane’s glorious netball career has taken to greater heights after her recent selection into the national netball team.
The 22 year-old student final year Bachelor of Science (Geography and Agrometeorology) student hailed her selection as a new challenge in her sporting career.
Chawana has this week been in Australia for the
Fast 5 netball series where they will be playing against Jamaica, Malawi, Australia, New Zealand and England on this coming Sunday and Monday.
A Fast 5 is a quick-paced netball game where contesting nations will select five players per side.
Testing her prowess with the best
Chawana has so far been capped three times in the
Spar Proteas national netball team; those were for the Quad Series matches which the South African Spar Proteas played against Australia, New Zealand and England. The games were held in Australia last month.
“I was nervous at first, but I wanted to go out there and wanted to prove myself that I worked hard to be here,” she said adding that their opponents were playing a different game with speed and high intensity.
“After those games, I felt like I needed to prepare myself more so that I could handle the intensity as I was playing with ladies who have been capped many times and were more experienced,” she said.
Kovsie netball coach “inspired me to be the best”
Asked who has been a source of her inspiration in her netball career, Chawana spared no moment in attributing her rise to Kovsie Netball Team coach
Burta De Kock.
She explained that from her late high school days when she was playing at provincial games in Limpopo, De Kock scouted her abilities and has been keeping an eye on her since then.
“When I was doing Grade 12, she approached me and said, ‘One day you will play in the National Netball Team.”
“When I first got the news of my selection, I exclaimed and said; Wow! Words do really come true, my coach Burta saw in me what I could not see and she prepared me for the best.”
She described her coach as a kind of a manager who individually nurtures the abilities of each and every single player for the best, “I am so grateful to her.”
Chawana blew off family blows
Last year, Chawana was dealt a devastating blow when her family home in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga was razed to the ground by fire, thereby losing all her possessions. Her father, Russel, also had to spend three weeks in the intensive care unit of a local hospital for smoke inhalation treatment.
“Having gone through all this, but for me, nothing picks me up more than a prayer. I felt that all this might have happened for a reason and it always aspired that something better will come up,” she said.
During the
Varsity Cup National Netball Tournament finals played which the Kovsie Netball Team played against the University of Pretoria here, Chawana came out as the best player in the Premier League, National Championship and the Varsity Netball in the same year.