Why Wiaan? Why would you declare when you are 34 runs away from surpassing Brian Lara - Brian bloody Lara! - and becoming the highest individual scorer in an innings among all the 3,234 men who have yet played Test cricket?
Are you sated by having made the most runs by anyone in an away Test, more even than Hanif Mohammad? Or by breaking Hashim Amla's South Africa record? Or by owning the highest score by a first-time captain?
Mulder's undefeated 367 against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, which he completed on Monday (July 7), is the subject of all of the above. His declaration came at Lunch on the second day, when South Africa were 626/5. They dismissed the home side for 170 midway through the third session, and enforced the follow-on. Zimbabwe only lost one more wicket in the 16 overs they played before the bad light forced stumps, but they are still 405 runs behind. South Africa's probability of victory wouldn't have been at all affected had they batted on until - or if - Mulder reached 401 and went past Lara. So, why Wiaan?
"We have to keep the main thing the main thing, and that is winning the Test," Mulder told reporters. "I felt like we were in a good position to do that, and I didn't have to bat any longer."
The "main thing" theory is a reference to the dictum that "the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing", which has been attributed to Stephen Covey, the author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People".
But there was more to that than this.
"Also, I think respecting the game is really important; letting someone like Lara keep his record," Mulder said. "He's one of the greatest to ever have played the game, so he deserves that. And, yes, all that matters is that I believe we are still in a great position to win the game." Indeed, far from having Lara's feat in his sights, Mulder was sad that he had knocked Amla and his 311 not out against England at the Oval in July 2012 - then the only triple century scored by a South Africa player - off his perch.
"I've worked with Hash [now the Lions batting coach] over the last couple of years, and he's obviously a hall-of-famer. So it's truly special to go past his record. But I always feel like a lot of the legends deserve certain accolades. I'm in no means close to a legend, so someone like Hash deserves to hold that record."
Besides, another, bigger record looms: victory in this match will take South Africa to an unprecedented - for them - 10 consecutive wins, a prize not lost on Mulder: "The main thing is always the main thing. The main thing is to win.
"That is the focus of this team. I don't think the focus is on any individual's performance, or the highlights of their careers and their performances, and all that stuff. The main thing is to win a Test."
Yes, Wiaan, we heard you the first time. But it's not the first time we've asked why Wiaan. Similar to what we did two days before the first Test against Pakistan started at Newlands in January. It was New Year's Day, and a gaggle of reporters had gathered on the outfield waiting to speak to one of South Africa's players.
On a hot afternoon, and even as the reporters' internal temperatures climbed, their enthusiasm drooped when they were told the cricketer on his way to them was Wiaan Mulder. Ah ...
Just like most players aren't as good at batting as they are at bowling, and vice versa, some are better at talking to the press than others. Nowhere is it written that everyone who has batted and bowled at the highest level is good at coming up with quotable quotes.
He wasn't, Mulder. He was thoroughly decent and respectful, and he had none of the big-headedness that can infect those suddenly made special by playing for an international team. But he was a pedestrian press conference victim - maybe because he had spoken Afrikaans exclusively before he went to St Stithians, one of Johannesburg's best and plushest high schools.
So expectations weren't high when he loped down the stairs, said hello and wished all present a Happy New Year. Because that's what decent and respectful people do, whether or not they are international cricketers.
Then he said: "I hate watching cricket. Especially when you feel like you're playing nicely and you could have filled some gaps that maybe the team needed. I've watched so much cricket over the last four weeks, it was terrible. I felt like, because I was playing cricket on the beach - which I was doing 100% - I'm like, why couldn't I be playing? I had a brace on, so my movement was limited. However, it is so frustrating to watch cricket. "I think you lose a little bit of your love for the game when you play a lot. And then when you're watching, that perspective is so important. You play for a lot of different reasons - when you're just ticking over or sometimes you play for the paycheque, sometimes you play because you kind of have to. There are so many reasons you play, but watching is crap."
Mulder was just back from breaking a finger against Sri Lanka at Kingsmead in November last year, and clearly he was champing at the bit.
Nevermind that. Who was this sharp-shooting, straight-talking, eminently quotable bloke, who seemed to stand taller and straighter and more clear-eyed and far more assured than he had done in previous press engagements? And what had he done with Wiaan Mulder?
It's tempting to answer those questions glibly: this was Mulder ASC as opposed to Mulder BSC. As in after and before Shukri Conrad. Perhaps that's too neat a theory, but there's no getting away from the fact that Conrad's appointment as South Africa's red-ball coach - and, significantly, as the Test team's sole selector - in January 2023 coincided with a dramatic alteration in the course of Mulder's career.
Mulder had scored a best of 36 runs in 19 Test innings before Conrad took over from Mark Boucher. He had a 14.31 average. In his 15 innings under Conrad he has scored 881 runs at 80.09 and made three centuries. Or two hundreds and his undefeated 367.
"Shuks has backed me for many years, from my academy days," Mulder said. "I do think that's freed me up to go and play and not worry too much about surviving and making every run count. The important thing is I feel like I deserve my position in the team. Or, to put it another way, I make a positive contribution by catching the ball and bat in the slips. I think my role brings a lot of balance to the team. All of those things contribute to freeing myself up and being able to play at the best of my ability."
Mulder's improvement has been less emphatic with the ball. He took 18 wickets at 26.38 before Conrad's arrival and has since claimed 19 at 23.21. But there is no doubt that, along with becoming a much better talker, he is also an exponentially improved cricketer. That was true even before his triple century, when he averaged 46.72. More importantly, he has found ways for his decency and respect to influence how he plays cricket.
Like when he was in hospital in Durban waiting for his broken finger to be treated. He was then a member of the middle order, and he was aware that his injury would prevent him from performing the crossbatted strokes that were required of someone who had to deal with tired bowlers and an old ball. But he figured he could still play straight, like top order batters must do. An idea was hatched: coach, how about I bat at No. 3?
Conrad agreed, and Mulder has batted at No. 3 in all seven of his subsequent trips to the crease - displacing Tristan Stubbs, who Conrad had previously proclaimed as his preferred player to take guard at the fall of the first wicket.
When Temba Bavuma was invalided out of the two Tests in Bulawayo because of the hamstring he hurt in the heroic cause of helping South Africa hammer Australia in the WTC final at Lord's last month, Conrad tapped Keshav Maharaj to stand in as captain. Fair enough: Maharaj has led South Africa in seven ODIs and five T20Is, and he is never without a plan for any situation. But when Maharaj was ruled out of the second Test against Zimbabwe with a groin strain, Conrad installed Mulder as captain.
Mulder captained teams in 31 junior matches, a dozen of them under-19 internationals. However, Leicestershire's quarterfinal match against Kent in the Royal London Cup in August 2022 was his only senior game in charge. Never in his 87 first-class matches had he been at the helm. Why then Mulder? Conrad's reply to the question was more of a riposte: "Why Wiaan? Every question is why Wiaan. The more responsibility I give him, the better he reacts." Three-hundred-and-sixty-seven unbeaten runs later, Conrad's words shimmer like a prophecy fulfilled.
There are elements of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn about Mulder's path through the game. Before he went to St Stithians, he had as much use for speaking English as he did for wearing shoes. He's from Krugersdorp on the West Rand, a place best known for its failed gold mine and as the headquarters of the South African chapter of the Christian cult called the Jehovah's Witnesses.
As Mulder walks round-shouldered back to his bowling alley, he still has the look of a lost, lonely country boy, his beard and fuzzy blond hair rippling in the breeze like his own personal tumbleweed. Then he turns and runs in tall, straight,
On a hot afternoon, and even as the reporters' internal temperatures climbed, their enthusiasm drooped when they were told the cricketer on his way to them was Wiaan Mulder. Ah ...
Just like most players aren't as good at batting as they are at bowling, and vice versa, some are better at talking to the press than others. Nowhere is it written that everyone who has batted and bowled at the highest level is good at coming up with quotable quotes.
Mulder wasn't. He was thoroughly decent and respectful, and he had none of the big-headedness that can infect those suddenly made special by playing for an international team.
