Lhuan-dre Pretorius has taken world cricket by storm over the past two years, from finishing as South Africa's leading run-scorer at the Under-19 World Cup to centuries on his first-class and Test debuts before announcing himself in Major League Cricket with a blistering maiden T20 hundred. In a freewheeling chat, the 20-year-old opens up about his obsession with batting, the boxer-like routine behind every delivery, his dream of scoring 10,000 Test runs, lessons from the IPL, his bond with Yashasvi Jaiswal and why instinct still trumps technology in his game.

The last two years have been surreal. You were South Africa's leading run scorer at the 2024 Under 19 World Cup, scored 97 on your SA20 debut, 120 on your first class debut, 153 on your Test debut. The list goes on, you know, IPL stint as well, right before 20. Now you're globe trotting here to America with the MLC with the Unicorns, have you ever had a quiet moment where you've stopped and thought that - wait, this is happening really fast?

Yeah, I think things happen really quickly in the sporting world, not just cricket, and I feel like I'm a firm believer in just doing the right stuff off the field, and then hopefully performances come by itself in preparation because I'm also a big believer in 'proper planning prevents poor performance'. So yeah, there's a lot of people that played different roles in me being where I am today. But to answer the question, there's a lot of times where you go through a bit of a rough patch and then you try to reflect on all the moments you've done well and everything you've achieved in the most recent times, and yeah, to answer the question, I have reflected quite a bit, and it's quite cool when you think of it. But sometimes you don't really appreciate it or value it as much as when you do well. But yeah, it's been really cool for the past two years.

Let's talk about your batting. You have a certain routine that you follow before every ball, as if you are getting ready for a bout like a boxer. That is what Akarshit Gomel, your SFU teammate defined your routine as. The way you hop about and let your bat juggle from one hand to the other. Everyone has their preset routines. But what is the thinking behind your routine? What kind of mindset does that get you into?

A lot of coaches I work with back home, Richard Des Neves and Siddhartha Lahiri from India, they always say before you face a ball, you want to be in your strongest position, and like a boxer, you always want to throw a punch in your strongest position. So that makes it quite coincidental that he said that. But yeah, it just keeps me in the moment, and it keeps me present and calm. I think if I stick to my routines and do the same thing the whole time, it means I'm focused and I'm not too distracted on other things, especially when chasing a score, I mean, you want to stay in the moment and stay present and do all the right things what the scoreboard tells you to do and what the team requires with you. So those routines, I know if I miss a routine one ball, then I know I need to come back and refocus because if I don't do the routines every ball, the same thing, then I know I'm a bit distracted, which I shouldn't be. So yeah, that's the main reason I do those things.

Did that routine come from within, or a coach helped you get that routine going?

Yeah, it came from within. I think a lot of players have different stuff. So like some people will ask for certain things from the dugout, or some people will ask for gloves every fourth ball of the over, or every second over, they'll ask for gloves just to keep them in the game, keep them in the moment. And I felt like I needed a ball-to-ball routine because I feel like I personally get bored very quickly in general life and maybe in cricket. But yeah, it's so exciting, and I found I needed a ball-to-ball routine to keep me focused, and yeah, it's been working so far in that department by keeping me engaged with the game.

Your teammates have told me that you don't like getting out at all, and that is clearly visible in your facial expressions and body language. You're just dragging yourself out of the ground when you get out. How deeply and madly are you in love with batting?

I don't know. I used to hit a lot of balls in school. Coming from dad, it'd always be hard on me hitting a lot of balls, and I was like, "Yeah, I don't mind it". Like, I didn't mind it, I didn't see it as a job or as an effort to do it. I just enjoy it. I could do it as a hobby every day. I'm very fortunate to call it my job now to score runs and bat. But yeah, there's nothing worse than sitting on the sideline, getting out and seeing the team getting the runs. It's always better to be there yourself and score the runs yourself. I really love batting. It's really up there. It's definitely my favorite thing to do.

Have there been instances where you've been really hard on yourself?

Yeah, there's a lot of times you're hard on yourself. I think a lot of players are, and I think that brings the best out of myself. I feel like I've been going through rough patches. If I go through rough patches or a rough patch or low score, I like to come back strong and forget about what happened in the past game. Like for me, I came off a duck before. I scored 100 the other day, and it could have easily been if I should just come in and get a 30 and just get a bit of confidence back. But the coaches here at SFU are really amazing, and they back you as a player. And I was just encouraged to give myself a chance, and that's what I try to do. Obviously I'm very hard on myself. But yeah, there are certain things you prepare for in a game, and if you stick to your plans and you fail on execution, then that's fine. But if you fail in sticking to your plan, then that's a problem. And then you have all the right to be hard on yourself.

And then to have a mature head on your shoulders, being the batting mainstay of world class franchisees, at the age of 20. You come from a conservative background back home in South Africa. Dewald Brevis told me his match shoes have an inscription reading "All Glory to Jesus". Is it where your belief and support system comes from as well?

We both come from Afrikaans families, and I think in South Africa, the Afrikaans community or kind of people are very similar. Same culture, same beliefs and everything. Having said that, I'm a very superstitious person, so if I get into those kinds of things, I'm gonna start. I try to stay far away from doing things like that. When I started playing red ball cricket, I had an "F" written on my bat, like on the shoulder of my bat for focus. Like I said earlier, I can get bored very easily, so not just in cricket in general life. But yeah, I had the F for focus, and then sometimes I'd over exaggerate it and be too focused, and then start tensing up. So I feel like there's a very fine line between the two. But yeah, to answer the question, I don't have any of those things.

We often hear the narrative that the next generation is prioritising franchise cricket over the traditional format. You're one of the brightest young cricketers in South Africa, yet one of your defining moments has already come in Test cricket. Do you think that narrative is overblown? And what role do you want Test cricket to play in your career?

Hopefully, I'm lucky enough to play a lot of Test cricket and be able to score 10,000 Test runs because that's a dream of mine. And that's definitely why I'd give any format up or any cricket to play Test cricket for South Africa for as long as I can. But yeah, it doesn't really affect me what they say. I know deep inside that I want to play Test cricket, and that's my dream and goal. As I said, to score 10,000 Test runs. Yeah, there's nothing better than playing Test cricket. I think, like everyone says, it's the pinnacle of cricket. I just want to play Test cricket so badly, and I'd give you anything to play Test cricket.

How was your time in India? It was your first stint at the IPL.

The relationships I built. I got very, very close with [Yashasvi] Jaiswal. Spent a lot of time with Vaibhav [Sooryavanshi], although he's five years younger than me, I felt like I could learn a lot from him, and yeah, I learned a lot. Definitely, what I've been doing in the MLC, how I've been batting-it's all-it's all because of the IPL, working with the people and building relationships, and just even though I'm not playing, it's three months of just playing cricket with the best cricketers in the world, just training with them and seeing how they go about their business, and you can speak to. I mean, there's an infinite amount of people with an infinite amount of runs. Kumar Sangakkara, all of those guys. You can just speak to them and bounce ideas with them, and just be cliched, but be like a sponge and soak it all in, and take it all in, and yeah, just take it forward. So yeah, definitely the way I'm playing now as well is because of the IPL.

It is quite revealing how you hit it up with Yashasvi Jaiswal. You both love batting, you both hate getting out and your shared love for red ball cricket.

We both really enjoy our coffee, so we would go for coffee, have chats, and go for dinner. Yeah, there were a couple of things we went out for coffee and dinner, and yeah, we had started chatting to him about cricket, and I feel like he really likes chatting about cricket and helping people, and yeah, that was really cool for me. Asked him about help and his experiences, and how he would approach certain situations.

Just the way he helped me and how he thinks about cricket and how he plays cricket, how he approaches test cricket. His ultimate goal is to play Test cricket, and so is mine. And we just chatted about it, how he approached it. Yeah, there's a lot of things outside of cricket. I'm just glad I could build the relationship. And if I'm going through a rough patch, I could message him and ask him for advice or anything, and he'd be more than happy to help.

You were there at the IPL for a couple of months. People say young cricketers graduate these days when they get their first stint at the IPL. Did you observe something about Indian cricket or the IPL that may have amazed you?

Definitely hard work. You see the net bowlers bowling to us every day for three, four hours, not not stopping and running in just to make us better. Yeah, it definitely opened my eyes to how hard people can work and how high your ceiling can actually be. So yeah, just in terms of hard work and work ethic, it opened my eyes. You think you work hard, but then you see there's other people how hard they work, and it just opened my eyes to see how high one's ceiling can be. Dhruv Jurel hits an insane amount of balls. He'd go to full practice and then be the first and the last one out, like people say. He is very good.

Coming back to Vaibhav, one can draw a lot of parallels between you and him, right from that downswing trajectory that seems to be coming from third man instead of the conventional first slip angle and the expansive range you guys can hit the ball through. Is there something that the coaches might have observed and told you guys how similar you guys are?

There's obviously comments made and stuff, but he's obviously his own player, and I'm my own player. He has maybe a bit of different strengths to what I am, and I think sticking to it and maybe just asking him from a mental perspective and approach point of view, and not too much a technical point of view. I think each player, not just me and him, each player has their own strengths, and I think you should stick to it. But yeah, there's obviously commons that there's a similar bat swing, similar striking, whatever. He's a class of his own, isn't he?

He has no fear of failure. He backs himself and he trains the way he plays, and yeah, he just goes out and he executes it the way he hits the ball. He consistently hits the middle of the bat, whichever length or bounce, and he just backs himself. And the level of confidence he has is incredible. And yeah, to see him go about his business exactly the same in training as what he does in a game, it's pretty fantastic.

I have been told you have been a big fanboy of Quinton de Kock. It is believed that he has been a very influential character in your life, right through your childhood. If you can tell us how he has shaped the way you think.

I met him when I was young. It was like a photo from when I was like eight years old when I met him. But yeah, I just went up to him and asked for a photo. You just speak about the game and you bounce ideas with him. You ask them for advice, what they did, how they did it, things like that. I played an ODI series with him in Pakistan. I made my debut with him. He gave me my cap. It's probably the most special moment up there with my Test hundred so far in my short cricket career. But yeah, I just spent a lot of time with him in Pakistan, had a lot of chats with him, and then played against him. Obviously the other night, he said he'd give me a bat if I scored 100, so then I scored 100. So hopefully, when I see him next, he's giving me my bat.

You are a young guy. Obviously, young guys these days are considered more tech savvy as well. The folks at SFU have built an inhouse cricket intelligence system, the SFU AI, so how has technology played a role in your preparation? How deeply do you get into it?

I think each person to their own. I think it differs from person to person. I'm not big into it. I believe in playing on instinct, and that's when I get the best out of myself. Otherwise, if I go too much into technology or too much into analysis, then you kind of start premeditating what bowlers are going to do. So I just go and look before the game what the change-ups are and what they look to do at the start with a new ball, and then doesn't matter what they do towards the back end because if you as an opener if you're batting on the 14th, 15th over, then you should be settled and you should be able to pick the variations quite easily, quite comfortably. So yeah, I just go before the game. In just see, what the bowlers look to do, who we expect them to play, what the conditions will be, what are the boundary sizes. But yeah, I think it's definitely a very big positive, and it gives people a big advantage. For me personally, I don't dive too much into it because I know myself, and I will get too fascinated on it and get too deep into it, which I shouldn't. So yeah, but it's really cool to see it. Yeah, I think it's only going to go forward. It's pretty sick.