Ken Borland

When Chloe Tryon first started playing international cricket back in 2010, South Africa were not considered prime contenders when it came to ICC tournaments. Now, as they prepare for the Women’s World Cup in New Zealand, the Proteas are under ever-more scrutiny as the second-ranked team in ODIs.

It is a pressure the 28-year-old Tryon says they are growing more accustomed to all the time, having learnt plenty of tough lessons from their semi-final exits in the 2017 World Cup and the 2020 T20 World Cup.

“We’ve come close before but been disappointed, so this tournament is about taking the next step,” Tryon said on Wednesday. “We have to make sure we keep it simple, tick all our boxes.

“We will treat it as just another game, but we are used to playing in world cups now, it’s time to make that next step and take a bit more responsibility.

“There’s still a long way to go before the World Cup starts on March 5, so at the moment it’s just about putting the building blocks in place. We’ve dreamt about this for a long time, four years and then it took another year to happen,” Tryon said.

South Africa’s previous visit to New Zealand, in 2020, saw them win the ODI series against their powerful hosts, so they will be confident they have the resources for the playing conditions to enable them to push for glory.

They open their campaign against Bangladesh in Dunedin. In the Group Stage, the eight competing sides will participate in a single-league format with each side playing the other once, the format that was previously used in the 2017 tournament. The top four sides following the conclusion of the league matches will progress to the semi-finals, with the winners meeting in the final on April 3 in Christchurch.

The Proteas can be forgiven for not liking the cut of the Hagley Oval’s jib after their humiliation in the first Test against New Zealand, but they have no choice but to adapt and do better when the second Test starts at the same Christchurch venue at midnight on Thursday evening South African time.

Losing an important toss and having to bat first, jetlag, or the effects of 10 days of hard isolation can all be proffered as reasons or excuses for the Proteas’ dismal failure last week, but international cricket, especially these days, is all about adapting to foreign circumstances. South Africa need to find the same resilience they show at home.

“Whoever adapts quicker will get the upper hand,” opening batsman Sarel Erwee said on Wednesday. “It’s not neccessarily the team that wins the toss and bowls first that will have an advantage, the stats show there is not much difference at Hagley Oval.

“We face a lot of tough conditions at home and it’s about adapting to them and making peace with the conditions. Mentally we have gone over our game-plans and processes.

“We need to stick to what we did right and those things that didn’t work, we need to adapt to be better. We mustn’t overthink it, but there were a few mistakes made and we need to put those right.

“It’s not going to get easier and our backs are against the wall. The only way to deal with it is to step forward and try and throw the first punch. I think people will see a different side and energy this Test,” Erwee said.

But taking on the New Zealand attack, even though it will still be without Trent Boult, is an advanced task, not just a simple matter of confidence and energy.

They were magnificent in their discipline, control and skill in the first Test.

“I always knew the intensity would be high and there would be no let-up,” Erwee said of his debut last week, “but the biggest surprise was that the intensity just never went away. It did not seep away, it was there every minute and every ball.”

Notwithstanding all the dropped catches and loose bowling, it is the South African batsmen who are under the most pressure. They need to get in and someone needs to go big. It will require much more discipline and patience in waiting for the Black Caps bowlers to come to them.

South Africa’s two Tests against Bangladesh at the end of the summer were confirmed on Wednesday as being played at Kingsmead and St George’s Park, which is hardly earth-shattering news. But it is the exact same schedule as in February 2019 when the cricket universe was shaken by Sri Lanka’s 2-0 series win.

The first Test in Durban starts on March 31 and the second Test in Port Elizabeth begins on April 8.

Sri Lanka shocked the Proteas at Kingsmead as they chased down 304 thanks to Kusal Perera’s incredible 153 not out and a 78-run last-wicket stand, and then the tourists won by eight wickets in Port Elizabeth to become the first sub-continental team to win a Test series in South Africa.

The series was the last for legendary fast bowler Dale Steyn and he remembers the uncertainty created by conditions that were unfamiliar for the home team but suited the visitors.

“The Port Elizabeth game was my last Test and we were just desperate to try and knock them over,” Steyn told The Citizen on Wednesday. “We were under pressure and that leads to cloudy minds sometimes.

“But that’s what happens when conditions are not in your favour at home. I think whenever we host a subcontinent team, you kind of want to play them on the Highveld, where there is bounce and seam movement.

“Those are unfamiliar conditions for them and you want to take them out of their comfort zone. But the conditions at Kingsmead and St George’s Park will even things out a bit because Bangladesh will be good on slower pitches.

“Maybe it’s because the Test matches won’t go as long as at SuperSport Park for instance. It will make things a bit more difficult for us, but I still think we well have enough to knock them over,” Steyn said.

One good thing about playing on the coast is that the pitches should be easier for the Proteas batsmen to shine on after a long period when they have not been able to advertise their real abilities at home due to a succession of tough surfaces to bat on.

“The batsmen had a rough time against India, although Dean Elgar was fantastic and Keegan Petersen was phenomenal. And now New Zealand will have seam and swing, if not so much pace and bounce,” Steyn said.

“So conditions should be a little bit more in favour of the batsmen against Bangladesh and our guys will be stoked with that.

“I still think we have a fantastic team, especially if we have our full seam attack with Anrich Nortje and Kagiso Rabada.”

Wallabies centre Ben Tapuai might not be part of Saturday’s United Rugby Championship match against the Stormers, but he this week provided the most apt description of the threat they will pose to the Sharks in Cape Town when he described their backline stars as almost having mutant powers.

Tapuai received a knock on his knee in training this week and so is not part of the Sharks squad going to Cape Town, but he had a first-hand view of just how dangerous the Stormers backline are in the 22-22 draw at Kings Park last weekend. The visitors made up a 19-3 deficit with half-an-hour to go thanks partly to some dazzling play by their backs, spearheaded by Warrick Gelant, Seabelo Senatla and Damian Willemse.

“The Stormers have some absolute freaks when it comes to stepping, so we have got to be very careful in that space,” Tapuai said.

“We delivered a good performance in the first 50 minutes of the match, but then you need to close out the game in the last 30. The Stormers will go up another level at home, so we have to match that.”

It is a warning that Sharks coach Sean Everitt reiterated later in the week, especially since the conditions in Cape Town are likely to be more conducive to running rugby.

“We have to play according to the conditions we are dealt, but the weather in Durban is pretty extreme at the moment with the humidity,” Everitt said. “Cape Town should be dry this time of year.

“So hopefully we are able to play differently and hold on to the ball for longer periods. But the Stormers backs are certainly full of x-factor.”

The Sharks will know they had plenty of opportunities to beat the Stormers last time out, but those chances and their hopes of a win were flushed down the sewer by poor execution and ill-discipline.

“It was disappointing how we drew the game, but the positive is that we had a lot of opportunities but we just didn’t execute,” Tapuai said. “So we’re kind of excited by that.

“We’re still learning and our combinations will click over time. There are miles of growth ahead of us because I can see a lot of youth in the squad and I’ve lost count how many Springboks there are.”

Getting those combinations to gel is helped by continuity in selection, and Everitt has brought almost the same squad down to Cape Town.

“It’s great to be able to build momentum through consistency of selection,” Everitt said. “It takes time to get that cohesion and the players have had limited time together on the field.

“Rugby is a game of cohesion, the more you play together, the better you get.”