Testimonials

Prof Habib Noorbhai has unique abilities that place him right at the top with the very best doctoral and masters students I was privileged to mentor.

Perhaps his most interesting ability is his capacity to complete an enormous amount of work efficiently on a wide range of disparate topics, in a short time and with a minimum of fuss. I learned early on that the best way to assist Habib was to give him a free rein to do what he had already decided and then to help him analyse what his data found. For his ability to produce work is, in my experience, unmatched. I think of the month he travelled around South Africa filming the batting techniques of almost all of South Africa’s professional provincial cricketers. Then he repeated the same in the United Kingdom by filming a large sample of English professional county cricketers. Then within another month he had analysed all the data and produced another chapter for his PhD thesis. I learned that once Habib decides to do something it would happen regardless of how unlikely I might initially have considered it to be. How possibly could he in the first place, travel to all these places and be granted permission to film all these players? Simply impossible. But “Trust Habib to get it done” is a phrase I found myself repeating very often.

Besides this extra-ordinary ability to undertake so much work – in the end I decided that Habib must sleep very little – other characteristics that I appreciated are his ability to be fearless – he is not daunted by any task he sets himself – and his desire to push the boundaries of knowledge, regardless of the personal consequences. He is committed to exposing the truth and will do so fearlessly. He is the only student whom I trained who has committed himself to that ethos in both word and deed.

I learned too of his very deep knowledge of cricket – as both a player and coach and now as a cricket scientist. And of his desire for continuous self-improvement. Today I know of no other person who understands the mechanics of cricket batting as well as does he. I mention it merely to point out that when he commits to a topic, he does not quit until he understands it fully and well enough to explain to others who perhaps lack his wisdom. But this is only a part of his repertoire.

Prof Tim Noakes

Emiretus Professor, University of Cape Town