Celebrated as one of the best death bowlers in South Africa and with Dale Steyn as his biggest fan, Sisanda Magala has a good yorker, the ability to change his pace and keep his cool when matters are at their most tense. He is also known as an end-of-innings power-hitter with the kind of all-round qualities needed to succeed in the modern white-ball game.
Magala was schooled at Muir College in the Eastern Cape and began his professional career at Eastern Province. He came to prominence as the leading wicket-taker in the Africa T20 Cup in 2016 and established himself at the Warriors franchise in the seasons that followed. Magala was picked by the Nelson Mandela Bay Giants for the 2018 Mzansi Super League and moved to the Cape Town Blitz for the 2019 edition, where he finished as the tournament’s sixth-highest wicket-taker.
He was included in South Africa’s white-ball squads to play against England and Australia in 2020 but fitness concerns kept him out of the playing XI. That winter, Magala opted to move to the Lions franchise in Johannesburg, seeking sterner challenges and more helpful home conditions at the Wanderers. The change worked and although cricket was mostly played in location-based biobubbles away from the Bullring that summer, Magala was the leading wicket-taker in the domestic one-day and T20 cups in the 2020-21 summer and was included in South Africa’s limited-overs squad to play Pakistan in April 2021.
