Ken Borland

South Africa were unable to marry their stellar defensive efforts with an attacking edge in the Women’s Hockey World Cup over the weekend, with defeats to Germany and Ireland in Amstelveen condemning them to the playoffs for 13^th-16^th spot.

Taking on powerhouses Germany for a place in the quarterfinals, goalkeeper Phumelela Mbande led an amazing defensive effort that saw South Africa miss out on a top-eight finish by just a single goal. They had kept the world’s fourth-ranked team goalless in the first half, but an early penalty corner strike in the second half proved the difference in a 1-0 defeat, that nevertheless made an impression on the world of hockey.

The defeat on Saturday evening meant South Africa had to play again less than 18 hours later against an enthusiastic Ireland team for a finish in the top-12.

Unfortunately, having put up such a stout effort in the previous game, the team’s lack of energy reserves caused them to sell themselves short in a 2-0 defeat.

After a bright start, South Africa gradually began falling off the pace, with ill-discipline and cards not helping their cause. Ireland began to take control of the match and it was only a heck of a defensive effort again which kept them to two goals. The Irish enjoyed 13 penalty corners to 1 and had 24 circle entries compared to South Africa’s 14.

“We’re disappointed with how we played,” Lilian du Plessis, who earned her 150^th cap on Sunday, said. “We let ourselves down a bit technically, we knew what to do tactically and it worked when we executed it properly.

“It was tough playing so soon after the Germany match, but we can’t use that as an excuse because individually we were not good enough.

“We need to regroup and refocus now, put lots of prep into our next game and try to fix what we got wrong today,” Du Plessis said.

Following their historic one-off Test against England, the Proteas Women now begin their preparations for the ODI and T20 series that will be played over the next two weeks, and will be looking to marry the batting basics they showed in the longer format with the more dashing strokeplay required against the white ball.

Star batter Laura Wolvaardt is probably not alone in being quite pleased to return to what she is more used to facing.

“The red ball was very tough to face, it was quite a challenge up front,” Wolvaardt said. “And there were some very tough conditions to deal with too, plus the Duke ball does a lot more than we’re used to.

“So I had to concentrate on leaving a lot of balls, which I’m not used to, especially since so much of my game is about cover-drives and going after wide balls. So it was quite a mental challenge as well.

“Test batting is all about technique and getting in strong positions, and the basics stay the same, so it’s good I’ve done that work ahead of the white-ball games and hopefully my timing will be there.

“It also helps having faced their bowlers in tough situations, and hopefully the white ball doesn’t do as much. But the ODIs are a format we enjoy and we’re very good at it,” Wolvaardt said.

The South African bowlers have also borne a heavy burden, but the chance to avenge their semi-final loss to England in the World Cup at the end of March is no doubt going to motivate and energise the squad.

“It was a big effort from our bowlers. Marizanne Kapp scored an incredible 150 and then bowled 16 overs the next day, and Nadine de Klerk bowled 23 overs in one day.

“But we are all very excited for the white-ball series. We’ve had a mixed bag of results against England recently: we won the first game against them at the World Cup but then we were very disappointed to lose the semi-final.

“Hopefully we can get a bit of payback for the semi-final. It feels like a long time ago, but it was still this year that it happened,” Wolvaardt said.

The first ODI in the three-match series will be played next Monday in Northampton.

Proteas coach Mark Boucher would love his batsmen to go out and show more intent in T20 cricket, but he knows they first of all need to be equipped to do so and he said on Tuesday that captain Temba Bavuma will be one of the players he will be working hard with ahead of the World Cup in October.

Bavuma’s series strike-rate of just 103.38 came under the spotlight when South Africa wasted a 2-0 lead in their T20 series in India, but Boucher on Tuesday backed his captain in unequivocal fashion, highlighting that many of his problems were due to the outstanding performances of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, the player of the series, up front with the new ball.

“Temba struggled, there’s no doubt about it, so as coaches we have to sit down and ask why? It was one bowler that he struggled against – Bhuvneshwar. Most guys did against him, he’s a fantastic bowler in those conditions and when the ball swings a lot then he is very dangerous. And the new ball was going up-and-down a lot,” Boucher said.

“We will look at giving him more options, but it’s quite difficult to change up during a series while you’re travelling and playing. Temba had also not played much cricket before the series.

“Against other bowlers, his strike-rate was fine, there were no issues. He wants to score quicker and his stats outside the powerplay are very good. He gets boundaries in different ways than say a Rassie van der Dussen or an Aiden Markram.

“There is space for a guy who can stabilise the innings and we see him in that mould. Temba loves a challenge, look how he has come through in Test cricket. He’s a tough cricketer and captain and we certainly do need him. I’ll be working extra hard with him and the bowling machine,” Boucher said.

The coach was also frank about the batsmen needing to embrace a new, more adventurous way of playing that he is trying to institute.

“You need the technical know-how to be able to play the shots, but your mindset also needs to be open to raising your strike-rate,” Boucher said. “By doing that you get your confidence up.

“In terms of mindset, you need to really trust the plan. And it’s not just about playing maverick cricket, we need to be smart too. It’s a new way and we don’t want to just go back to our default of a year or so ago.

“The batsmen need to commit to the new philosophy and not have doubts. You’re not going to win the World Cup if you don’t have the right mindset and the way India and England play is the way forward.

“Some batsmen are not used to taking a risk inside their first six balls, and especially in the third game we saw that, there was not enough intent. We didn’t pull the trigger to put the bowlers under pressure,” Boucher said.

The Proteas may not yet have all the answers for the T20 World Cup starting in Australia in October, but coach Mark Boucher said the 2-2 series draw in India has certainly dealt with many of the questions surrounding the side.

The fifth and decisive T20 was washed out at the weekend, and although there was disappointment that South Africa lost the previous two games and therefore failed to wrap up the series win, Boucher said he was satisfied with the overall result.

“It’s always tough coming here to play India. I know a lot of top players were not here, but the depth they have, largely due to the IPL, is really good. On the back of the IPL, those players were in good form and had been playing on these pitches,” Boucher said.

“I will take 2-2, even though we did not play our best cricket. But we asked a few questions in this series and we got a lot of answers. Our plans will probably change a bit in Australia, but we take confidence from this series.

“We had two good games and two bad games, and there were reasons for that. We tried a few options in these conditions, and there were periods we played really well and periods when there was lots to learn,” Boucher said.

The powerplay was the main area of concern for Boucher, the coach admitting that India had bossed the crucial first six overs of the innings, with both bat and ball. But the absence of Aiden Markram, who missed the entire series due to a positive Covid test, was the most disruptive blow to their plans.

“It was tough to lose Aiden before we even started. That put us under pressure because we wanted to play six batsmen with Aiden as our sixth bowling option. That was a massive loss to our batting up front,” Boucher said.

“The batting up front was probably the biggest thing to think about. We struggled to get going with the bat. We speak about it every game, the importance of intent. It’s about how we change the mindset. In the third game especially we did not show enough intent up front.

“The bowling was very good at stages, but at other times we looked a bit rusty. And our batsmen were up against quality bowling, I thought Bhuvneshwar Kumar was special the whole series, he really put us under pressure in the powerplay.

“In fact, India dominated us in the powerplay with both bat and ball,” Boucher said.