[3] Volsteedt[clarification needed] taught him the basics of the game and began to regularly play cricket with him during Sunday visits to the Wessels household.
A few years later, Volsteedt became the master in charge of cricket at Grey College, Bloemfontein, and coached Wessels during his playing days for the school's first team.
By the age of 12, he was playing rugby union for the Free State primary schools team and he was one of the leading schoolboy swimmers in the province.
With the help of Johan Volsteedt (who was the first team captain), Wessels was allowed to participate in the net practices and soon cricket became his main activity during summer.
During winter, he played tennis, at which he won so frequently that, by 1973, he was the number 1 under-16 player in South Africa and was offered a scholarship of $25 000 over four years from the University of Houston.
After a dramatic loss during the Griqualand West Open in Kimberley – after which he cut all the strings from his racket in the changing room – Wessels turned down the offer from Houston and decided to focus all his attention on cricket.
[3] He played his first first-class match at the age of 16, batting at number nine and making 32 for Orange Free State in a team captained by the Test veteran Colin Bland.
As a South African with little hope of playing Test cricket for his country, Wessels joined the "circus" to take advantage of the better pay and conditions that the WSC offered.
He arrived in Sydney at the age of 21 and was put on trial at the local Waverley club, for Packer to see first if Wessels was decent material for World Series Cricket.
Wessels stayed in Australia to qualify for the Australian Test side, playing for Queensland, and made his debut against England at The Gabba in Brisbane on 26 November 1982.
Given the dominance of West Indian bowling at the time, and the fragility of the Australian batting line-up, Wessels' performance during that series was world class.
His debut with Eastern Province was auspicious, captaining the side to a 212-run victory over Orange Free State, and scoring 133 and 78 against a bowling attack that included a young Allan Donald.
[22] The series of four "Tests" ended in a 1–0 victory to the South African team, but Wessels scored 327 runs at 54.50, including two centuries in the fourth match.
Wessels played with many former Australian teammates in this series, including Kim Hughes, John Dyson, Steve Smith, Rodney Hogg, Carl Rackemann and Terry Alderman.
Frank Heydenrych, writing for the 1991 Wisden, comments upon Eastern Province's success during this season: In 1989/90 Wessels also played for South Africa against a rebel English team captained by Mike Gatting.
The decision to name Wessels captain over such local heroes as Rice and Cook (who both didn't even make the side) was met by widespread controversy.
More than 10 000 signatures were collected for a petition against the dropping of Rice and Cook, while 71 percent of provincial players told the Sunday Times in South Africa, that they had no confidence in the selectors.
Rain-delays caused the match to be played 30 overs a side and, once again, South Africa managed to secure victory after India set an imposing target.
The last ball was played with batsman Brian MacMillan scoring a single, and South Africa lost the semi-final by 19 runs.
South Africa narrowly lost to a West Indian team featuring such players as Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Patrick Patterson, Desmond Haynes and Brian Lara.
[24] During the 1993/94 international season, Wessels' cricketing career reached full circle, as he captained the South African side in a tour to Australia.
Following a heavy defeat at the Oval, however, where he made the second highest score of 28 with the bat during a major collapse in the second innings,[26] he retired from Test cricket and was replaced as captain by Hansie Cronje.
It ranged from doubts over his ability to play one-day cricket, his "ugly" stance to his style of captaining as well as his rather serious approach to the game.
Although he played 109 One Day Internationals for both Australia and South Africa, he averaged only 34.35, at a strike rate of 55.3, and scored only one ODI century in his career.
Former Australian captain and teammate Kim Hughes, had publicly supported Wessels on this fact, saying: "Kepler hits so many boundaries that he is always going to score enough runs and, even in one-day cricket, you need someone who can anchor the innings.
[34] During the 1989 Currie Cup final in Port Elizabeth, Wessels angered South African cricket authorities by letting his Eastern Province side bat deep into the third day, without declaring the first innings closed.
He was accused of killing the game and ruining what was supposed to be the annual showpiece of South African cricket, by not giving his opponents, Transvaal, a fair chance at batting.
[3] However, the decision proved to be correct from an Eastern Province point of view, as the home side managed to bowl Transvaal out twice by the fifth day, thereby winning by an innings and 103 runs.
As captain of the national side, Wessels was similarly criticised for playing too conservatively in South Africa's first test series since readmission into international cricket.
Although South Africa won the home series against India by 1–0, fans and critics sharpened their pencils and attacked the captain mercilessly for his team's apparent lack of passion and ambition.