Ken Borland

The Proteas Women’s performances made the grade in most departments during their 4-1 T20 series win over India, according to captain Laura Wolvaardt, but there are a couple of areas of their game which still need brushing up as they head into the 20-over World Cup in England in June.

South Africa signed off the series with a dominant performance at Willowmoore Park in Benoni, beating India by 23 runs. Wolvaardt was once again the Player of the Match as her sparkling 92 not out off just 56 balls carried the home team to 155 for six. An impressive bowling performance then restricted India to 132 for eight.

Wolvaardt took her tally of runs for the series to 330, the most in a women’s T20 rubber, making her the obvious choice for Player of the Series. The 27-year-old averaged 82.50 at a strike-rate of 168.36.

Her opening partner, Sune Luus, also enjoyed a successful series, scoring 197 runs at an average of 49.25 and a strike-rate of 138.73. But one concern for the Proteas will be that no other batter scored more than Annerie Dercksen’s 65 runs in four innings, two of which were not out.

Wolvaardt said after the fifth T20 that the lack of partnerships after the powerplay, in which they scored 49 without loss, was a concern. She faced 30 of the first 50 deliveries of the innings, reaching 50 in that time, but only 26 deliveries in the remaining 70. The Cape Town born player hit the last two balls of the innings for six to provide a crucial late boost in the company of Sinalo Jafta (16* off 8).

“Our total of 155 was somewhere around our goal in the end. The one area we lacked a bit in was partnerships. If we had one big partnership then we would have got over 165, which would have been decent. But we were about par, maybe a bit under.

“I did feel that I lost momentum a bit after the powerplay. We needed just one more big partnership, because when you lose wickets you’re also building dot balls. But I’m very happy with our batting in the powerplay and how much intent we showed.

“In all five matches that was good, and it was something that was not the best in the past. Previously we’ve been having slow starts and then some massive finishes. Now our starts are putting us in really good positions,” Wolvaardt said.

“Our death bowling has also come a long way, after we had found it tough in New Zealand. I thought it was a proper bowling effort today, the spinners were very good, Chloe Tryon and Nonkululeko Mlaba were excellent. We found a way to keep the batters quiet in the first 10 overs, they tried to force things but they just couldn’t do it. I was very impressed with the bowling.

“Taking our catches is one area we need to improve though. It’s been frustrating that in every game, one or two catches have gone down. But our play has been pretty good overall in this series, and I will now take a look at the different phases of the game more deeply.

“But we are very happy to beat India 4-1 and they are in our World Cup group as well. We now have a bit of momentum going into the tournament and it tells us that we are doing a lot of things right,” the skipper added.

While Wolvaardt was loathe to describe her performances as being the best she has ever batted, she did say she enjoyed being so fluent at the crease.

“I’m very happy with my form, although I did always have the best of the conditions because I won all the tosses. My batting had been a bit sluggish – in New Zealand I was getting like seven off the first 16 balls – and I can’t really say what changed. That’s how cricket is sometimes and it was nice to keep it going and enjoy the freedom to play positively,” Wolvaardt said.

When former Knights pace bowler Dillon du Preez took over as the interim coach of the Proteas women’s team, he felt like he had a mountain to climb. Now that he has scaled that peak by leading the side to the T20 World Cup final, the flats, much like the terrain around his Free State home, surely now lie ahead?

But Du Preez himself is not sure he wants to continue as the head coach. This is despite the obvious rapport he has built up with the team – starting in September 2020 as an assistant – and his fellow management team at the World Cup.

Replacing Hilton Moreeng, who stepped down as head coach in May after 11 years at the helm, has proven problematic for Cricket South Africa. Finding a suitable candidate with a Level IV coaching certificate (which Du Preez has) has been the stumbling block.

The 42-year-old Du Preez wonders whether he has enough experience for such a key role, having only been coaching for two tears when Moreeng hand-picked him as his bowling consultant in 2020. Firm friends off the field from their playing days, they led South Africa to the T20 World Cup final on home soil in 2023, losing to Australia.

“It’s been difficult for me,” Du Preez told Rapport when the team returned to a heroines’ welcome in Johannesburg this week. “Doing things like handling the media has been fairly new to me and I do wonder whether I’m the right person to continue. The cornerstones are there, you have to learn how to get past semi-finals and we have done that, and now we are one step away from winning finals.

“But we are on our way. The one thing I question though is do the team need more from their head coach? I will be taking a few days off now and then I will sit down with Enoch Nkwe [director of cricket] and we will discuss everything,” Du Preez said.

He also praised his two assistants, Paul Adams (bowling) and Baakier Abrahams (batting), for their valuable input that has certainly added value to the team.

“They have been very valuable, you can see that in the huddle, which Paul runs. He brings such focus and calmness, he’s been around so when he speaks, people listen.

“And Baakier has been a coach for a while. He has got buy-in from the players and they all know their scoring areas now,” Du Preez said.

Even though the Proteas fell at the final hurdle, losing to New Zealand by 32 runs in the T20 World Cup final in Dubai, they were highly impressive in the daring cricket they played, and their upset victory in the semi-finals over six-time champions Australia was one of the most complete all-round performances in South African cricket history.

“I’m very proud of the ladies. We had a discussion after the final and we told them all the positives that came out of the World Cup, but we also said nothing we say is going to make you feel better.

“But you have to take the positives out: making back-to-back finals in very different conditions and there were lots of individual accolades too. We were outplayed in the final and in hindsight there were things we could have done differently.

“I think our confidence started to grow after the India series, there were a few areas we identified, and some tools we gave the players in two skills camps we had, in which Paul and Baakier were heavily involved.

“Then we went to Pakistan and we could see from game one that things were starting to fall into place. Especially in terms of more aggressive batting, for which we got buy-in from the players.

“So real belief was there when we went to the World Cup, even though conditions were incredibly tough – the heart rates went up to 140-160 just standing still in the heat, so we had to have lots of water breaks.”

The novelty value and excitement of being part of a greater Team South Africa at the Commonwealth Games will hopefully see the Proteas women’s cricket team return to their strengths and bounce back from a torrid run of six straight defeats against England when they play New Zealand in their opening game at Edgbaston on Saturday.

Team unity will seldom be more important for the Proteas as they are without most of their leading individual stars – Lizelle Lee has controversially retired, Marizanne Kapp is back in South Africa attending to a family emergency, Dane van Niekerk is still injured and Trisha Chetty and Tumi Sekhukhune are also unfit to play.

They have also been in England for a long time, suffering regular blows to their morale, and key players like Shabnim Ismail, Sune Luus and Mignon du Preez have been struggling for form.

Coach Hilton Moreeng has tried to bolster the mood.

“It’s very exciting to have this opportunity to be part of the Games, it’s a first for us and you can see the joy in the players, they know they have the opportunity to do something special.

“It’s a very happy camp and we feel blessed to represent Team South Africa. The main thing is we have acclimatised and we can adapt to conditions in Birmingham very well.

“Plus we’ve been playing against a very competitive team like England, who are always in the top two and they have tested us well. We’ve gone back to the drawing board to see how we can improve.

“We’ve learnt a lot playing against England and now we will use that to see how we can get victories in the Commonwealth Games. We will need to fire in all our disciplines,” Moreeng said.

While New Zealand have been inactive since the World Cup in March, it should be remembered that they beat the Proteas 3-1 in their previous meeting back in February 2020, clinching the series by romping to a 69-run victory in Wellington.

England and Sri Lanka are the other teams in Group B, so it is likely whoever wins Saturday’s clash between the Kiwis and the Proteas will make the semi-finals along with the hosts.

But New Zealand have been underachievers in global women’s events and South Africa will hope their greater match-sharpness will allow them to put their opponents under pressure.

Play starts at 12pm.

The Proteas Women’s team began their tour of England five weeks ago and their brave draw in the one-off Test seemingly gave them a toe-hold in the multi-format series. But since then it has been a mass of bad fortune and a litany of defeats, which does not augur well for their chances in the Commonwealth Games starting this weekend in Birmingham.

South Africa arrived in England with talk of competing on all fronts, having beaten their hosts in the T20 World Cup earlier in the year before the tables were turned on them in the semifinals. Sadly, there is little doubt that the Proteas have regressed since then, while England have powered on to new heights with a rejuvenated team introducing exciting new blood.

The Proteas have lost both the ODI and T20 series 3-0 since then, but there have been mitigating factors.

Regular captain Dane van Niekerk has still not returned to play since November last year, and key players like fast bowler Shabnim Ismail and all-rounder Chloe Tryon have also struggled with injuries. The shock retirement of Lizelle Lee, on the eve of the ODI series, must have been a damaging mental blow for the team and it is doubtful that it does not speak to some sort of cultural issues within the squad.

And now Marizanne Kapp, who has been turning in massive performances game-after-game, is back home, ruled out of the Commonwealth Games, due to a family emergency in which her brother-in-law suffered serious burns.

While it would be unwise to make a meal of the recent results given these setbacks, questions need to be asked about whether the pipeline is delivering the quality that is needed for South Africa to remain one of the top sides.

It has not helped that senior players like stand-in captain Sune Luus, stalwart batter Mignon du Preez and 33-year-old bowling spearhead Ismail have not enjoyed good tours.

It is turning into a very long tour for the Proteas Women and they need to pull things together with haste to ensure the wheels don’t come off properly in the Commonwealth Games. Coach Hilton Moreeng will need all his powers of inspiration to put this squad back together again.