A busy right-arm seamer, Pumelela Mathsikwe is a hard-working provincial cricketer, who received few franchise breakthroughs. Matshikwe's career was ended when he as implicated in the match-fixing scandal in South Africa's T20 tournament in the 2015-16 summer.

Matshikwe was schooled at St David's Marist College and attended the University of the Witwatersrand. He made his provincial debut in the 2008-09 season for Gauteng but could not break into the Lions franchise.

In the 2011-12 season, Matshikwe was picked to be part of the Impi squad - a seventh franchise team added to South Africa's T20 competition, which was a composite team comprised of the best provincial players who could not nail down franchise spots. He was their leading wicker-taker with 11 scalps at 23.27 and 11th overall.

Despite that, he remained on the fringes of the Lions outfit until the 2015-16 season when he was a regular in their victorious one-day campaign. Matshikwe was the second-highest wicket-taker for the team with 11 wickets at 29.36 in the tournament.

On August 1, 2016 Matshikwe was banned for ten years for receiving a payment to fix in the 2015-16 Ram Slam tournament. Three years of his sentence was suspended.
Firdose Moonda