Chloe Tryon – Bulletproof Truth

Luus no longer captain, Tryon absent as Moreeng moan grows

“The team are winning despite him, not because of him.” – an opinion of Hilton Moreeng.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

SUNé Luus, who captained South Africa to the T20 World Cup final in February, is no longer in the position. The vice-captain, Chloe Tryon, is not in the squad. Unhappiness over the re-appointment of Hilton Moreeng as coach is understood to be at the heart of the issue.

On Friday CSA announced a squad to play three matches in each of the white-ball formats against Pakistan in Karachi from September 1 to 14. Luus was selected but not named captain. Tryon, a release said, had “requested a leave of absence” and was not picked.

No captain was named. The decision had been deferred until closer to the tour, “ensuring a seamless transition and continued success for the team”. That seems unlikely given the dressing room is split over Moreeng, who has been South Africa’s coach since December 2012.

Senior players, Cricbuzz has learnt, wrote to CSA expressing dissatisfaction over Moreeng’s coaching philosophy. Although Moreeng is not unpopular at an interpersonal level, several sources have said some of the players feel “the team are winning despite him, not because of him”. His methods are deemed outdated, an opinion supported by the fact that he has been in the job for almost 11 years. During the latter part of his tenure South Africa’s players have been exposed to modern coaching styles in competitions like the Big Bash League and The Hundred.

The complaint reached CSA’s board, which referred it to its cricket committee, which appointed a task team to investigate. It was felt that as the charges against Moreeng were made in a way that did not follow CSA’s established grievance procedures they could not be acted on.

Luus no longer captaining the team is thought to be directly linked to that decision. If she is among the players who have expressed a wish for Moreeng to be removed she could hardly continue in her leadership role. Tryon asking not to be in what looks like an increasingly strained environment is understandable.

Moreeng’s previous contract expired on June 30. That it took CSA until Friday to confirm he would stay on until December 31 would only have inflamed the players’ concerns. Uncertainty fuels unhappiness, a lesson the suits seem determined not to learn.

It is unfortunate that matters have reached this sorry stage considering Luus’ team were the toast of the game in their country not quite six months ago, when — despite being without Lizelle Lee and Dané van Niekerk — they became the first senior South Africa side to reach a World Cup final. Australia beat them by 19 runs, but it seemed they had put the women’s game in their country on its surest footing yet.

CSA now contract 16 players and are set to announce a new professional league, but women’s cricket in South Africa has been impoverished and under-appreciated compared to the men’s game. This year’s T20 World Cup, which was played in front of adoring home crowds, was considered an important step in changing those realities for the better. Now, it feels like a false dawn.

But it cannot be forgotten that Moreeng helped take South Africa to the heights they reached in February, and to the ODI World Cup semifinals in 2017 and 2022. Like his players he had to find ways to win despite scant resources and support for his team. He has been, one administrator said on Friday, “a one-man band” and had “consistently” taken his concerns to CSA about what he and his players needed and lacked.

A dozen of the 15 players who were in the T20 World Cup squad will be on their way to Pakistan in the coming weeks. But, for now, the focus is on the women who won’t be there. And on the man who will.

South Africa squad for Pakistan series: Anneke Bosch, Tazmin Brits, Nadine de Klerk, Mieke de Ridder, Lara Goodall, Sinalo Jafta, Marizanne Kapp, Ayabonga Khaka, Masabata Klaas, Suné Luus, Nonkululeko Mlaba, Tumi Sekhukhune, Nondumiso Shangase, Delmi Tucker, Laura Wolvaardt.

Fixtures (all at the National Stadium in Karachi): T20Is — September 1, 3 and 5. ODIs — September 8, 11 and 14.

Cricbuzz

South Africa regroup, Devine devastated

“I’m not sure too many words can describe the disappointment, the embarrassment. It’s not good enough.” – Sophie Devine

Telford Vice / Boland Park

SOUTH Africa’s day was difficult even before they arrived at Boland Park on Monday to play New Zealand in the women’s T20 World Cup. Defeat would probably have taken them out of the race for the semi-finals. At the WPL auction, only four of their dozen players who entered their names were bought.

They couldn’t do much about what a bunch of moneyed franchise owners across the world thought, but how they performed was up to them. They had played far below themselves in the tournament opener at Newlands on Friday, losing to Sri Lanka by three runs after totalling only 129/4. Another defeat and they were in danger of being relegated to the kitchen at their own party.

Much the same could be said about New Zealand. In search of 174 to beat Australia at Boland Park on Saturday, they were bowled out for 76. And just two of their 19 players on the auction block landed gigs.

The day ended far better for South Africa than New Zealand. They scored 132/6 and then dismissed the Kiwis for 67. How was it possible that a team who had played as poorly as they did in Cape Town could re-invent themselves so emphatically just three days later?

“We spoke about it just after the Sri Lankan game,” Chloe Tryon, who scored 40 and took 2/12 from three overs, said. “We sat up in the changeroom and we said we’ll leave it here. We knew we had a quick turnaround. We know we had to make sure that, going into the next game, we were doing the right things. I think everyone came with the mindset today of just working really hard.

“We put up a score of 130-plus, which I thought was a little bit short. But every bowler knew what they needed to do, and you can see the fire burning in everyone — that they wanted it so badly. So we’re making sure we still have that fire burning, and being ruthless as a bowling unit.”

Sophie Devine had the tougher job. How had the team she leads slumped to two of New Zealand’s lowest five T20I totals in the space of three days? “I’m not sure too many words can describe the disappointment, the embarrassment. That’s not good enough for an international cricket side and I take a lot of that as captain and how I lead this team. It’s not good enough.”

South Africa’s resurgence will be tested on Saturday, when they take on overwhelming favourites Australia at St George’s Park. But New Zealand, who play Bangladesh at Newlands on Friday and Sri Lanka at Boland Park on Sunday, had all but given up on reaching the knockout rounds.

“Honest answer, it’s bloody tough to make it now,” Devine said. “The way that our runrate’s absolutely out the window [at -4.050] is probably a sign of we’re going to have to score about 8,000 runs and restrict Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to about 20. Funnier things have happened, I guess.

“But we’ve put ourselves in this position and we’ve got to be honest with that. That doesn’t mean those games aren’t valuable to us, and we’ve got to hold ourselves to account. We’ve got to play with real pride every time we put on the New Zealand shirt. It means a lot to this group.

“Yes, we’re going to hurt a lot and that might take a couple of days. But we’ve got to let it out and we’ve got to figure out why.”

Had the WPL auction fuzzed her players’ focus? “I think you’re living under a rock if you don’t think it was a distraction, it was bizarre. The timing of it was obviously not ideal, but it is what it is. There were lots of discussions among our players about it. I don’t know what the right or the wrong way was to handle it, but we spoke about it openly and how it affected us. But, the bigger picture stuff, it’s incredible for women’s sport and women’s cricket to see some of the money that was thrown around.”

Devine spoke of “recovering, mourning, I don’t know what you call it” in the wake Monday’s game. But the overall impression she gave was of anger. How would that be expressed? Would her players be the target?

“It’s probably going to come out in tears,” she said, before falling into the softest silence. “Yeah … now you’ve set me off.” When she found her voice again, her eyes shone. “It’s really hard to lose games of cricket like that. I’d much rather we went down swinging and get bowled out for 12 than not show our true ability and be pumped like that.

“Full credit has to go to South Africa, they were the much better team. But me getting angry is not going to solve anything. I don’t know the answer, I honestly don’t. And that’s where it’s really hard. I wish there was some sort of magic bullet that could fix it all and we could come right within the next couple of hours.

“But I don’t know the answer and that’s what we’re going to have to figure out as a team and that’s what we’re going to have to go through as a group — figure it out together because we’re in this for the long haul, and that’s what I love about this group. We haven’t played to our potential and it’s been upsetting, and it’s been embarrassing and disappointing.

“But I’d give anything to play for this group, and for the girls who are in that shed upstairs right now, me getting angry isn’t going to do anything about it. If anything I need to get round them and wrap my arm around them. We’ve got to find the positives but it’s going to be a pretty messy 24 hours.”

Attention. There’s a captain on deck.

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Testing time for lesser spotted South Africa

“It’s about longer concentration, and it’s more taxing on the body and the mind.” – Hilton Moreeng on turning white-ball players into a Test team.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

HOW do you prepare a team for a match in a format they hardly ever play? Hilton Moreeng, the coach of the South Africa side who will start a rare women’s Test against England in Taunton on Monday, smiled at the question.

When South Africa last played a Test the No. 1 song in the US was Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off”. On the first day of the match, but more than 15,000 kilometres away in New Orleans, Solange Knowles — Beyoncé’s younger sister — married Alan Ferguson. Who? Nevermind: they separated five years later. Or before South Africa had played another Test. Yes, their drought has outlived marriages. Since the women were last in whites, against India in Mysore in November 2014, South Africa’s men have played 65 Tests.

Only five of Moreeng’s squad of 15 have played first-class cricket, all in Tests; earning six caps in all. Or the same number won by Moreeng alone during his days as a wicketkeeper for Free State’s first-class side in the early 2000s.

With 37 first-class caps, which are also Test caps, England’s squad are six times more seasoned than their opponents. Their most recent match in the format wasn’t almost eight years ago but in January. This year. Not that England have been lurching from one Test to the next. They have played five since South Africa’s most recent; four against Australia, one against India, all but one of them drawn.

Australia and England played the first women’s Test at the Exhibition Ground in Brisbane in December 1934. One or both of those teams have been involved in 173 of the 290 women’s Tests yet played: almost 60%. New Zealand, India, South Africa and West Indies have played 107. Men played 238 Tests before women made their debut. The current Headingley Test between England and New Zealand is the 2,467th between men’s teams — eight-and-a-half times as many as women have played.

South Africa will go into Monday’s match having featured in 173 white-ball internationals since a handful of their players last pulled on a pair of whites. Small wonder Moreeng said they were struggling to adjust. “The ones battling currently are our batters, because we’ve just come from a white-ball competition against Ireland [earlier this month, when South Africa played three matches in each format],” Moreeng told a press conference on Thursday. “What has helped is the prep we had prior to the Ireland tour; a three-day and four-day game where we introduced most of them to the format. The bowlers have adapted much better.

“We know that, in the other two formats, you can build partnerships. But in this one you need to take it session by session. It’s about longer concentration, and it’s more taxing on the body and the mind. Technically players need to be sound. Everyone is starting to understand, and they’re excited to see how it goes.”

South Africa completed their Test preparations in a drawn three-day game against England A at Arundel that ended on Thursday. The star of the visitors’ first innings of 301 was opener Laura Wolvaardt, who batted for more than three-and-a-half hours and faced 148 balls to reach 101, whereupon she retired. That Wolvaardt succeeded will not surprise those familiar with her textbook technique and solid temperament, but it remains astounding that she should reel off a century in her first senior representative two-innings match. In the same innings Lara Goodall scored 51 and Suné Luus made 48. Wolvaardt and Goodall shared a stand of 116. All told in their first innings, the South Africans batted for almost five hours and faced 489 balls. Wolvaardt’s opening partner, Andrie Steyn, and Luus scored half-centuries in a second innings of 325/9 declared that lasted for almost five-and-a-half hours and 535 deliveries.

That was enough to nurture hope in Moreeng: “How batters set up their innings, taking their time and showing application, wasn’t there in the preparation matches that we had. We are very happy to see that on the back of white-ball cricket. Most of our batters have spent time in the middle to be able to understand what’s required.”

As for the bowlers: “They need to make sure they can manage the excessive swing they get with the Duke ball on these pitches, and also the lengths they have to adapt to. They need patience around setting up batters and working towards a plan.”

There were eight South Africa debutants in that 2014 Test. There could be 10 in Taunton on Monday. The only squad survivors from Mysore are Trisha Chetty, Marizanne Kapp, Lizelle Lee and Chloe Tryon. Maybe that’s no bad thing considering South Africa lost by an innings. “We were well in the game, then we lost concentration as a unit after tea and that’s when we lost the match,” Moreeng said, a reference to South Africa losing 6/25 on the second day. “It shows what a lack of concentration can do. We need to make sure that everyone understands the discipline required in this game and how you need to stay focused and stay on the button because every session is critical. We need to make sure we stay focused and competitive in every session.”

Not only to perform well but to refute, with deeds, not words, Dean Elgar’s assertion in April: “It’s a man’s environment when it comes to playing at this level.”

First published by Cricbuzz.

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South Africa to Van Niekerk: wish you were here

“We need to have a knockout mindset now; that next game against South Africa is crucial to our World Cup hopes.” – Heather Knight

Telford Vice | Cape Town

THE hair was from a movie set. The clothes were from a magazine. The crutches and moon boot were from a hospital. Dané van Niekerk made a striking sight as she waited on the wrong side of the turnstiles at Newlands in January.

After breaking her ankle in a slip on the side of the swimming pool at her home near Gqeberha, there was no way Van Niekerk was going to the World Cup. The accident had happened on the last day of South Africa’s rousing win in the second men’s Test against India at the Wanderers. Five days later the deciding match of the series started in Cape Town. Unexpectedly at a loose end, Van Niekerk was enlisted to offer her opinions on television. But it seemed no-one involved had realised that, to be granted access to the Newlands media centre, she would need to be accredited.

So there she was, all dressed up with nowhere to go on the pavement outside the ground. She was calm and respectful as functionaries scurried hither and thither trying to resolve the issue, but her face was frozen with what looked like frustration. Van Niekerk had been wrenched from a tournament that could have made her the first captain of a senior South Africa side, regardless of gender, to win a World Cup. No doubt the knowledge that her wife, Marizanne Kapp, whose 32nd birthday she had helped celebrate two days before the catastrophe, would indeed be shooting for glory in New Zealand only added to the hurt of missing out.

Now, marooned in a moon boot, propped up on crutches and conspicuous in her finery, it must have felt as if cricket itself didn’t want her around. But a plan was made and Van Niekerk’s fresh honesty, unvarnished by banal commentator-speak, was heard in South Africa and India, and far beyond. Cricket still wanted her after all.

After South Africa’s first two World Cup games, she can be confident her team would welcome her back with even more enthusiasm than they would have shown had she managed to return before the tournament. The South Africans have won both of those games, but not nearly as well as they should have for a side ranked No. 2 in the world, and considering their opponents.

Against Bangladesh in Dunedin on Saturday, South Africa were dismissed for 207 — just the fourth time in their last 10 ODIs that they have been bowled out batting first. The Bangladeshis reached the last five overs of their reply needing 43 with four wickets standing and Nigar Sultana and Ritu Moni well set. Then Shabnim Ismail nailed Moni’s leg stump, the first of four wickets to fall for nine runs in 17 balls as Bangladesh were dismissed for 175.

At the post-match press conference, Hilton Moreeng talked up the Bangladeshis’ fighting spirit and spoke of first-match nervousness. But it said much that the South Africans had sent out their head coach — always a sign that things have not gone as well as expected — to talk to the reporters rather than a significant performer in the match.

In Mount Maunganui on Friday, Pakistan limited South Africa to 49 runs in their last seven overs, in which four wickets fell, in their total of 223/9. On Thursday, Chloe Tryon had said, “[The batting against Bangladesh] was definitely under par. We discussed thoroughly that we weren’t happy with our performance. We didn’t take responsibility up the order.”

It seems more conversations on the topic are required. Certainly, Laura Wolvaardt was less enamoured with her dismissal in the 30th over — she fetched a wide delivery from Ghulam Fatima and fell to a fine return catch by the diving bowler, the first wicket in a slide of 3/10 in 17 deliveries — than her effort of 75: “I was very upset when I went out. I get very angry when I feel like I put in the hard work and then take it all the way. How I got out was, I felt, very dumb.”

Not least because of a shoddy showing in the field by the South Africans, Pakistan looked to be surging to victory when they went into the last four overs needing 38 with four wickets standing and Nida Dar 44 not out. At the same stage of their innings, South Africa were only four runs ahead and also six down.

A dozen came off the penultimate over, bowled by Ayabonga Khaka. That narrowed the equation to 10 required with two wickets in hand. Up stepped Ismail again to end Diana Baig’s dangerous innings with a sprint from the bowling crease to midwicket to take the catch over her shoulder. A panicky Fatima was run out three balls later trying to take a bye to the wicketkeeper, sealing South Africa’s victory by six runs.

Why should South Africa’s supporters be concerned about a team who have played two, won two and are third in the standings with a game in hand over second-placed New Zealand? Because they arrived at the tournament as serious contenders for the title, and they aren’t living up to that billing. Between the 2017 World Cup and this edition, only Australia had a better win/loss ratio than South Africa’s. That has not been apparent in their displays against sides ranked sixth and eighth, and who have lost all five matches they have played at this event.

South Africa now face a reality check in the shape of their match against England in Mount Maunganui on Monday. Heather Knight’s team have lost their last five ODIs: a series in Australia in February and to the Australians and West Indies at the World Cup. Before that, the 2017 champions had won seven of their previous 10 matches in the format. They are not used to failure, and they will be hell bent on snapping their sorry streak against South Africa — who they have lost to only eight times in 38 ODIs.

“We need to have a knockout mindset now; that next game against South Africa is crucial to our World Cup hopes,” Knight said after England had gone down to the Windies in Dunedin on Wednesday. “We have to bring that mindset of needing to win every game and that simplifies things, doesn’t it? And hopefully that’ll sharpen people’s minds to what we need to do, because at the moment we’re fighting for life in this tournament.”

If South Africa were playing as well as they could, those words wouldn’t raise the alarm. Under the circumstances, they blare ominously. Whether Van Niekerk’s experience and presence would have made a big enough difference — and whether she could keep a lid on the pressure cooker that will be the England match — cannot be known. But she is being missed. More so than Quinton de Kock, whose retirement from Test cricket in December after the first match of the series against India has hardly been felt because the team he left behind have, apparently, left him behind by pulling off impressive wins.

Not so Van Niekerk, who remains an important part of who and what her team have become. That isn’t obvious from the numbers. Of South Africa’s 50 ODIs with her as captain, they have won 29 and lost 18. Since her debut, and when she hasn’t led them, they have won 30 and lost 23 of 57. But there’s more to this than stats. There’s also stardust.

With her in charge South Africa make movies, often with a happy ending. Without her they look like they might need crutches. Or a kick in the appropriate spot, moon boot and all.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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World Cup squad player profiles

15 of South Africa’s best.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

WHO are the women flying South Africa’s flag at the World Cup? These are their potted biographies:

Suné Luus (captain)

Dané van Niekerk’s slippery pool deck — on which she fractured her ankle less than a month before the start of the 2022 World Cup — was Luus’ gain going into the tournament. She took over the captaincy, a job she had done in 20 previous ODIs, to keep the leadership in the hands of a leg-spinning allrounder. Luus became, in May 2017, at 21 years and 124 days, the second youngest South African and the ninth youngest woman overall to captain a national team in an ODI.

In 2016, Luus equalled the 37 wickets West Indian Anisa Mohammed took in 2011 as the world record for the most claimed in ODIs in a calendar year. Luus scored 52 and took 6/36 to become the second woman after England’s Heather Knight to make a half-century and claim a five-wicket-haul in the same ODI. When she took 6/45 against New Zealand in January 2020, she was the first woman to have two six-fers to her name. A year later, Luus became the 10th player to score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets in ODIs.

Tazmin Brits

Tazmin Brits never planned to have a cricket career. Instead, she thought she was bound for Olympic glory. She was the junior world javelin champion in 2007 and fixed her eyes on the prize of the 2012 London Games so firmly she had the five interlocking circles of the Olympic symbol tattooed onto the inside of her right biceps. But fate had other ideas, and in November 2011 a car crash ended her athletics ambitions. More than seven years later, in May 2018, having come back from much physical, mental and emotional pain, Brits made her South Africa debut in a T20I.

Although she was without a half-century after seven ODIs heading into the 2022 World Cup, she had reached 50 three times in her 20 T20Is. That suggests a big hitter, and Brits can certainly wield the big stick when that’s needed. But she is also blessed with the ability to work the ball around the ground for ones and twos.

Trisha Chetty

As the oldest player in South Africa’s 2022 World Cup squad, Trisha Chetty is also among the most accomplished. She holds the world record for dismissals in ODIs with 165 and is the second-most capped wicketkeeper in the format after England’s Sarah Taylor. In October 2010 Chetty shared an opening stand of 170 with Shandré Fritz, then the highest partnership for any wicket in T20Is. Chetty is one of six members of South Africa’s 2022 World Cup squad to have played Test cricket.

A genuinely quick-handed stumper, Chetty is also a legitimate middle order threat having scored 16 ODI half-centuries going into the 2022 World Cup. But her most recent foray into that territory was in May 2017. Part of the reason for that is the success of the women batting above her: she wasn’t required to bat in seven of her last dozen ODIs before the World Cup.

Mignon du Preez

Although three members of South Africa’s 2022 World Cup squad are older than Mignon du Preez, she was in many ways the senior pro in the side as their most capped ODI and T20I player. Having assumed the captaincy in October 2011, she led the side in one Test, 46 ODIs and 50 T20Is before relinquishing the leadership in June 2016 in order to focus on her batting. It was with her at the helm that women’s cricket began to be taken more seriously in South Africa, hence her favoured status among players and the public.

That Du Preez had a bright future in the game was apparent as a 12-year-old, when she hit 16 sixes and 25 fours and scored 258 in an under-13 inter-provincial match. She scored 55 on ODI debut, in January 2007, and in August 2007 she and Johmari Logtenberg put on an unbroken 224 for the fourth wicket, then the second-highest stand in all women’s ODIs.

Lara Goodall

Few batters have been as eager to put risk quite as far above reward on their list of priorities as Lara Goodall. When she is at the crease, stop what you’re doing and watch. You may not be detained for long, or you may be there for a while. But you will not be bored. Goodall has no qualms about hitting the ball in the air, setting off on singles that may or may not be there, and pulling ever more inventive strokes out of her kitbag.

Those attributes would scare off the more conservative kind of coach. Happily, Hilton Moreeng has not been among them. He was instrumental in Goodall’s return to the national squad in January last year after an absence of 15 months. She also didn’t play for South Africa between January 2017 and February 2019. The reward was Goodall’s scores of 49 and 59 not out in a series of five ODIs in India in March 2021. The latter helped clinch the series.

Shabnim Ismail

South Africa’s box office fast bowler, and among the quickest and most aggressive in all the game. And if you don’t believe that, ask Shabnim Ismail — she’ll confirm exactly that. Except that she will argue no-one is faster or more aggressive. Good luck winning that debate, not least because she has the facts to counter any dissent on the matter.

Ismail was South Africa’s all-time leading ODI wicket-taker going into the 2022 World Cup, and the fourth-highest overall. She also led the South Africa list in T20Is, and was third in the world in that format. She was named player of the match after the WBBL final in November 2020, when she took 2/12 to help Sydney Thunder beat Melbourne Stars by seven wickets. She is one of the half-dozen in the World Cup squad who have played Test cricket.

Unusually for female cricketers, who attract an unfair amount of criticism which often veers into abuse, particularly online, Ismail has been open about challenges she has overcome. Her Wikipedia page lists her suspension for an incident involving alcohol abuse in July 2014, and she has admitted to dealing with an obsessive compulsive disorder.

Sinalo Jafta

Picked in the 2022 World Cup squad along with stalwart wicketkeeper Trisha Chetty, Sinalo Jafta had played only 16 ODIs heading into the tournament despite making her debut in October 2016. But, as a gutsy grafter, she has quietly kept her name in the selectors’ plans with decent performances behind the stumps and with nuggety lower order batting.

Jafta was born into the game’s Eastern Cape heartland. But she came to cricket from hockey, in which she seemed to destined for a senior international career. Once she made the choice to focus on cricket, she figured she would be a bowler. Only when she was 16 did donning the stumper’s pads and gloves appeal as something she wanted to do.

Marizanne Kapp

A fast bowler’s fast bowler. A middle order batter’s middle order batter. A cricketer’s cricketer. Marizanne Kapp is the epitome of the modern player. Her performance in both disciplines has been central to South Africa’s success since she made her debut at the 2009 World Cup. That will not change in this year’s tournament.

Kapp’s searing seriousness, particularly when she is steaming towards the bowling crease, tall and imposing, a splendid splinter on the move, is a sight to behold. But stay out of her way if things don’t go according to plan. After South Africa went down by two wickets in an intensely competitive 2017 World Cup semi-final in Bristol, Kapp spent several minutes sitting silently on the outfield long after the rest of the players had left the scene. It probably didn’t ease the pain that she was named in the ICC’s ODI team of the year in 2017.

Kapp became the first South Africa player, and only the third woman, to take a hattrick in a T20I in September 2013. Also capped at Test level, she was third among South Africa’s all-time ODI wicket-takers and second on the T20I pecking order as the 2022 World Cup loomed. She was their fifth-highest runscorer in both formats. Among those above her in all of those categories was Dané van Niekerk, whom she married in July 2018. A former provincial athlete and netball player, Kapp has a degree in sports management.

Ayabonga Khaka

If Ayabonga Khaka is in the market for a nickname, she could do worse than call herself Black Ice. No bowler is cooler under pressure, and none seems able to execute their skills to such a high level as consistently. There is an unshakeable calm about the way she goes about her business, which tends to have a settling effect on the rest of the team.

She had conceded less than a run a ball in 63 of her 73 ODIs going into the 2022 World Cup, and claimed wickets in 51 of them. Khaka banked a career-best 5/26 in January, when she was named player of the series. She was seventh, two places behind Shabnim Ismail, in the ICC bowling rankings before the tournament. Although less explosive than South Africa’s regular new-ball pair of Marizanne Kapp and Ismail, Khaka’s team have come to rely on her for stability.

Masabata Klaas

If Masabata Klaas’ medium pace looks gentle and unthreatening, be especially careful. It is anything but — as she proved in May 2019 when she became the 10th woman to claim an ODI hattrick. Which isn’t to say Klaas is a firebrand, but her subtle skills are appreciated in a side not short of emphatic players. The irony is that her sporting role model is among the most emphatic performers to grace any arena: Serena Williams.

When Klaas first asked the boys at her primary school whether she could join their break-time game of cricket, they scoffed and told her to go away. She persisted and eventually the boys relented and tossed her the ball. That was the last time she had to beg her teammates for a bowl. Ninety-five international white-ball caps later, it’s more true than ever.

Lizelle Lee

Ms Dependable herself. And Ms Devastating. Leading up to the 2022 World Cup, Lizelle Lee had passed 50 in six of her last eight ODI innings. That hot streak included her third century in the format, 132 not out off 131 balls in March 2021. In a T20I in February 2020, she hammered 101 off 60 balls.

By then, she knew how to score big and quickly. In an under-19 one-day interprovincial game in December 2010, she piled up an outrageous 427 in a total of 690/1. She smashed an undefeated 169 off 84 balls in a senior inter-provincial match in October 2013. No-one has scored more ODI hundreds for South Africa, and her 26 half-centuries is also a record. Despite that, none of her international centuries have been scored at home.

Lee is a familiar face on the English and Australian short format circuits, one of the half-dozen current South Africa players who have won a Test cap, and among eight women from anywhere who have opened the batting, kept wicket and captained in the same ODI.

Nonkululeko Mlaba

Having made her T20I debut in September 2019 and played her first ODI in January 2021, Nonkululeko Mlaba — who was 21 going into the 2022 World Cup — is among the newer members of South Africa’s dressing room. But it did her chances of quickly becoming a key member of the attack no harm that, before the tournament, she conceded less than a run a ball in all four of the ODIs in which she had bowled all 10 of her overs.

By then, Mlaba had claimed only four wickets in her eight ODIS, but they were all prized: Pakistan’s Javeria Khan, India’s Deepti Sharma and Sushma Verma — in the same match — and West Indies’ Sheneta Grimmond.

Tumi Sekhukhune

You should know what you’re getting into when a player lists her role model as Shabnim Ismail, as Tumi Sekhukhune has done. At 24 heading into the 2022 World Cup, Sekhukhune hadn’t yet had the chance to live up to her hero’s exploits. But she was making her mark — in the 19 ODIs in which she had bowled, only twice had she gone for a run a ball or more.

Sekhukhune had never batted higher than No. 9 for South Africa in her 42 matches in both white-ball formats, and in her 139 matches all told she had taken guard only 56 times. But might there be an allrounder in there somewhere? In an under-19 inter-provincial one-day game in December 2016, she came in with her team in trouble at 40/4, shared a stand of 141, and finished not out on 63 off 124 balls. Then she took 1/2 as her team polished off the opposition for 32 in 14.3 overs. It was in a T20 at that level that Sekhukhune took her first five-for — a haul of 5/15 in an innings that included eight ducks.

Chloé Tryon

Going into the 2022 World Cup, just eight women from any country had made a higher score batting at No. 6 than Chloe Tryon’s 69-ball 79 in February 2017. Her 92 off 68 deliveries in August 2016 was the second-best effort by a No. 7. She hasn’t always scored that many runs, of course, but you can count on her for at least a few: not since February 2016, or 49 innings before the World Cup, had she been dismissed for a duck. Indeed, she had been removed without scoring only four times in her 69 ODI innings.

It’s that level of reliability that has made Tryon a familiar figure in South Africa’s middle order. Since her international debut, in a T20I in May 2010, she has played in the only Test the team have contested and in almost two thirds of all their white-ball fixtures. Little wonder she was made vice-captain for the 2022 World Cup.

Laura Wolvaardt

She was only 22 at the 2022 World Cup, but it was already a cliché that Laura Wolvaardt owned the most dazzling cover drive in all of cricket. It’s more a piece of jewellery than a stroke, a thing to be noticed and marvelled at. And appreciated for the beautiful confluence of bat, ball and perfect timing that it is.

But there’s a lot more to Wolvaardt than one gem of a shot. In August 2016, she scored 105 to become, at 17 years and 105 days, the second-youngest woman to celebrate an ODI century. That was in just her seventh innings in the format at that level, by which time she had also made two half-centuries. Going into the 2022 World Cup, she had made three centuries and 21 50s — equal with and second to Lizelle Lee in South Africa’s record books — to go with her three T20I half-centuries. No woman playing for South Africa has reached 1,000 or 2,000 runs faster in ODIs, and only Mignon du Preez, Lee and Trisha Chetty have scored more runs — and they have had between 68 and 26 more innings than Wolvaardt. Three of South Africa’s top 10 highest ODI innings belong to Wolvaardt. The only other player to appear on that list more than once is Lee, who is there twice. Wolvaardt had the highest all-time ODI average by a South African before the World Cup.

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A more than suitable team

“The team make it easy. They know what they want to do. I think I’m just there to say who bowls when.” — Suné Luus

Telford Vice | Cape Town

SIX wins on a single visit? Never before has a senior South Africa team of any description achieved that level of success in India. It’s a wonky stat in the sense that only twice previously have they played six or more matches on one trip to the biggest chunk of the subcontinent. But, considering their history there, that has been merciful.

So the women’s team that will depart Lucknow on Wednesday evening having beaten India 4-1 in the ODI series and 2-1 in the T20I rubber have set themselves apart. Even their losses have a place in the narrative of victory. The first, in the second ODI by nine wickets with 31.2 overs remaining, followed a resounding win in the opening match. Would South Africa recover from that dramatic deflation? Would they ever. They scored 223/4 to win the next match. Only five times had they hunted down a bigger target, and their total would have been still higher had the innings not been reduced to 46.3 overs. Then they made 269/3 to claim the fourth match — their highest successful chase. That decided the series with a game to spare, which South Africa also won. Their sole T20I loss came on the back of a rare failure by the batting order, but it was suffered in the dead rubber that followed them holding their nerve in teetering tension to win the second match — and with it the series — off the last ball.

Lizelle Lee piled up 288 runs in the ODIs to surge to the top of the world rankings. But Punam Raut was only 25 behind with Mithali Raj 78 adrift. No other South African reached 200 runs. Jhulan Goswami and Rajeshwari Gayakwad took eight wickets each and had economy rates of 3.51 and 3.56. South Africa’s leading wicket-taker was Shabnim Ismail, with seven. The series’ most economical bowler was Ayabonga Khaka, who went for just 3.44. But she took only one wicket. Something similar unfolded in the T20Is, where Shafali Verma was the leading run-scorer with 130. No South African, nor another Indian, reached 100. Gayakwad and Ismail each took four wickets but their economy rates diverged significantly: 4.75 for Gayakwad, 8.20 for Ismail.

As much as South Africa were a juggernaut as a team, their superiority was not clear at individual level. Maybe that’s the value of stability and experience. Hilton Moreeng has been their coach since December 2012. Mignon du Preez, Marizanne Kapp and Ismail each have more than 100 ODI caps, and Ismail, Suné Luus and Lee have 98, 80 and 79 appearances in T20Is. The other side of that coin is that they have enjoyed these advantages for a long time but not performed as well as consistently as they have in recent weeks. What’s changed?

“I’m not really sure what to pin it down to, but from the way we started the Pakistan series [at Kingsmead in January and February], to the way we started the India series there was a silent confidence going around in the camp,” Suné Luus told an online press conference on Wednesday. “Nobody really thought about it, but since the moment we hit the ground running in the Pakistan series, everyone never doubted their own skill and the skill of their teammates next to them. Nobody ever doubted that we wanted to win and were going to win. There was never any fear of failure. That was maybe there previously. Everybody was determined and motivated to move forward as a team.

“Maybe we were better prepared than them, having played the Pakistan series [whereas the South Africa series were India’s first since the T20 World Cup in February and March last year]. Or maybe we believed in ourselves more. I don’t really know what was the difference, but at the end of the day we just played better cricket.”

Luus is central to an example illustrating her point. Dané van Niekerk has been South Africa’s regular ODI captain since October 2016, their T20I skipper since February 2018, and a matchwinning allrounder besides. She should thus have been vital to their chances of beating Pakistan, not to mention competing in India. But Van Niekerk — and fellow stalwart Chloe Tryon, the vice-captain — have been off the field with back injuries since November. Cue Luus’ apparently seamless elevation: South Africa beat Pakistan 3-0 in the ODIs and 2-1 in the T20Is. And now the unprecedented triumph in India.

“Dané left big shoes to fill; she’s an unbelievable leader and captain,” Luus said. “But the team make it easy. They know what they want to do. I think I’m just there to say who bowls when.”

Luus’ small smile as she made her joke later broadened when she cautioned: “You mustn’t believe anything you hear about bubble life. It’s really not as exciting as you think.” We hear a lot about the trials and travails of players trying to perform at their best despite the restrictions imposed by Covid-19 lockdown regulations. Mostly, we hear it from men. Maybe reporters women don’t ask women about this as often. Or maybe women, already facing a range of obstacles in their bid to be taken seriously in cricket, simply get on with it.

“It’s a new thing for a lot of teams and a lot of the hotels we go to,” Luus said. “We were lucky enough to have a recreational room where there was table tennis, chess and darts [equipment], and some other games as well. We could come in, switch off and not think about the game. Otherwise we could focus on some studies, catching up on assignments here and there; not too much — you’re still on a cricket tour. Everybody’s very excited to go home now and breathe in some fresh air; go walk around, whether it’s in the street or in a nature reserve. Just somewhere.”

That South Africa have been a breath of fresh air for their watching supporters is undeniable, especially in a cricket culture where the performance of the other senior national team has become a corollary for the ongoing harm being done to the game by the dangerously inept upper reaches of CSA.

It isn’t often a sponsor should be mentioned in despatches like these but an exception needs to be made for Momentum, the financial services company whose name is attached to the women’s team. The company agreed to back all male one-day cricket in South Africa, down to under-13 level, in June 2012 and it became the national women’s team’s title sponsor the next year. But in September last year it announced it would not seek to renew the contract that expired in April this year because it was, a statement at the time said, “not satisfied with the current state of affairs at CSA regarding governance and other reputational issues”. But it will continue to back the women’s side until April 2023, at least. The team’s success could be seen as Momentum’s reward for holding CSA’s feet to the fire.

“As a business we have gone through tough times, and we needed someone to believe in us when we were under pressure,” Carel Bosman, the head of sponsorship, told the press conference. “We believe in this team. Regardless of what’s going on, we’re going to continue supporting them. There will be more news coming of us supporting this team.”

It helps that the players who have your company’s name on their kit are scoring runs, taking wickets, winning games and celebrating their success for all to see on television. “As a sponsor, performance is an element that almost comes as a bonus,” Bosman said. “When we got involved with the team we believed they could be the best in the world, but ultimately it’s still down to the team, the coaching staff and the management to make it happen.”

He saw a switch flick at the 2020 T20 World Cup, where South Africa went down by five runs, on Duckworth/Lewis, in a white-knuckle semi-final against Australia at the SCG. “Something changed in their minds. They suddenly realised they can be the best and they can beat any team in the world. You can’t really explain to people how close they are. To see it all happen and to be part of that process is very special, because it’s not guaranteed.”

It isn’t, and South Africa will face a challenge to retain their positive momentum — not their sponsor — because their slate of engagements for the coming months is blank.

You don’t want to waste this form. You want to bottle this feeling. Come on CSA, do the right thing. Along with the team they feel duty-bound to watch — and who will host Pakistan in white-ball series next month — give South Africans the team they want to watch.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Faraway fan proud of her team

“It’s about gaining confidence in what we do. You can see in our skills that the confidence is sky high.” – Dané van Niekerk

Telford Vice | Cape Town

SOUTH Africa’s No. 1 fan has been stuck on the couch since January: “Every game. I won’t miss a ball. I’m very proud; 4-1 against India in India is historical. I’d give anything to be in the changeroom at the moment.” But for a back injury, she would have been.

It’s been almost four months since Dané van Niekerk picked up a bat or bowled a ball in anger, on a drizzly Sunday at the North Sydney Oval in the colours of the Sydney Sixers. Ominously, perhaps, it was November 22 — the same date John F Kennedy had been assassinated 57 years previously. She last played for South Africa on another wet day in Australia’s biggest city: March 5 last year, when the hosts squeezed her team out of their World T20 semi-final by five runs with the help of Duckworth/Lewis.

Van Niekerk watched every game, every ball at Kingsmead in January and February as the side she has captained in 72 of her 186 internationals beat Pakistan in five of six white-ball games. And as they handed India a masterclass in their ODI series in Lucknow, which ended on Wednesday with South Africa winning by five wickets with 10 balls to spare.

The Lucknow matches started at 9am (IST), so dew was a factor — every game was won by the team batting second. India were held to totals of less than 200 three times and dismissed twice, and South Africa were bowled out for 157 in their only loss. But India have had only 11 first innings bigger than the 266/4 they made in the fourth game on Sunday, when South Africa achieved their highest successful chase to win by seven wickets with eight balls remaining.

Punam Raut and Lizelle Lee scored the series’ only centuries, but South Africa had eight half-centuries compared to India’s six. Half the eight batters who topped 100 runs in the rubber were from the visitors’ ranks. Jhulan Goswami and Rajeshwari Gayakwad were the leading wicket-takers with eight each, and both delivered better figures than the 3/28 claimed by Shabnim Ismail in the first match, South Africa’s best bowling performance in the series. So it isn’t clear why South Africa were dominant, although it is true that they played spin far better than in past Asian adventures.

For Van Niekerk the proof was in the intangibles: “This team has come a long way. There’s a lot of experience in the group and a lot of maturity around them. It’s about gaining confidence in what we do. You can see in our skills that the confidence is sky high. The players are hungry to put in performances. It’s a combination of things that have been coming for a couple of years.”

Not many sides would have played as well as South Africa did in the wake of the removal from the equation of someone as central to their cause as Van Niekerk. Add to that the absence of vice-captain Chloe Tryon, who also has a back injury and also last played on November 22. The stand-in captain, Suné Luus, missed the third and fourth matches in Lucknow — when South Africa faced their toughest chases — through illness. Laura Wolvaardt stepped in seamlessly, and scored 53 in what proved to be the series decider. To win, and win well, despite all that is remarkable.

Tryon would seem to be further from a return to action than Van Niekerk, who said: “I’m on a programme and there are protocols to follow. It’s about proving match fitness. I’m very close.” But the cricketless months have been difficult, not least because her major source of support, wife Marizanne Kapp, has not been around because she is also an integral part of South Africa’s XI. “It is a frustrating thing to go through,” Van Niekerk said. “As a cricketer you always want to play and you want to be there with the team. I call them my second family because they are; I spend a lot of time with my teammates. But the nice thing about our team is that we’re so happy for each others’ successes. To see all these youngsters putting up their hand and doing well makes me proud. It’s healthy because nobody can be complacent.”

Of the four South Africans who scored more than 100 runs in the India series only Mignon du Preez, at 31, is not in their 20s. At 28, Lee is a stalwart of 166 internationals and the top-ranked batter in ODIs. The other two, Wolvaardt and Lara Goodall, are 21 and 24. Anneke Bosch, who at 27 has eight ODI caps to her name, was afforded just two innings in Lucknow but she made them count: she was 16 not out when rain ended the third match with South Africa ahead on Duckworth/Lewis, and she scored 58 on Wednesday. Two of the five South Africa bowlers who had the best economy rates, Nadine de Klerk and Nondumiso Shangase, are 21 and 24. Their second-highest wicket-taker, Tumi Sekhukhune, is 22.

Their No. 1 fan is 27 and firmly focused on another engagement in the Antipodes, in March and April next year. “We’re building momentum going into the World Cup,” Van Niekerk said. She plans to be in the dressingroom for that. And maybe on the podium.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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SA keen to come in from Covid cold

A test is not a Test, and doctors’ opinions come before coaches’.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

WHEN someone connected to an international cricket team says, “We’re just looking forward to the next test”, we think we know what they mean. But when that team is South Africa’s women’s side, and when the official who says that is their doctor, it means something else.

South Africa last played a women’s Test in November 2014, and the pedants among us will spot that the first letter of the last word in the quote above is not capitalised. What Dr Tshegofatso Gaetsewe was talking about was Covid-19 testing. And so she should have been, what with South Africa scheduled to play six white-ball games against Pakistan at Kingsmead from January 20 to February 3.

The pandemic has struck the squad already. A player and a member of team management tested positive before the squad went into their bio-secure environment (BSE) on Friday. Both are asymptomatic. “They are currently in isolation,” Gaetsewe said on Monday. “They are well, and they will join the BSE at a later stage if deemed necessary. Since we’ve entered the BSE no member of management or player has tested positive.”

But that didn’t mean the focus on detection would be eased — the next round of testing will be conducted on Wednesday. “Our camp is a month long, so we’re going to do [weekly] tests just to make sure we do not miss asymptomatic cases that could potentially be infective and spread,” Gaetsewe said. “We’re just looking forward to the next test.”

Were there gender differences in how the coronavirus strikes victims, and thus in how it is managed in men’s and women’s BSEs? “It’s very broad, it’s very varied, it changes all the time, it doesn’t choose gender, it doesn’t choose age,” Gaetsewe said. “It attacks you whatever gender you are, whatever age you are. We are equally at risk. What we cannot predict is the severity of disease.”

The pandemic isn’t South Africa’s only challenge, what with captain Dané van Niekerk and senior pro Chloe Tryon ruled out with lower back injuries they sustained in December. But ace allrounder Marizanne Kapp, who was hospitalised with an elevated heart rate while playing in the WBBL in November, has returned to full fitness. “It’s a very big setback,” coach Hilton Moreeng said of Van Niekerk’s and Tryon’s removal from the equation. “One reason is that you don’t know how the year is going to pan out because of the virus. When there is opportunity to play cricket you want to have all your best players available because you don’t know when you’re going to have another opportunity. From another perspective, the players who are going to get opportunities can show what they can do and that will make us stronger. The team needs to move forward.”

Who would captain the team in Van Niekerk’s absence? “We know in the past Suné Luus did a very good job, but that is a discussion that will happen closer to the time,” Moreeng said. Luus has led South Africa in 19 of her 153 white-ball matches. Pertinently, she helped guided the team to a drawn ODI series and victory in the T20Is against Pakistan in South Africa in May 2019.

The South Africans were last on the field as a team at the SCG in March last year, when their T20I World Cup semi-final against Australia went down to the wire. The Aussies won by five runs and went on to beat India by 85 runs in the final. The Pakistanis also played their most recent match in that tournament — a washout against Thailand. In their previous game South Africa beat them by 17 runs.

Eight of the 14 players contracted by CSA have since featured in T20 leagues in other countries, but it’s been a long wait for them to gather again. Not that they are congregating like they did in the past. “The bio-bubble is very strange for everyone,” Moreeng said. “You can see the players’ minds are still going towards the old behaviours. You still want to do what you used to be able to do. The players haven’t seen each other for a long time and they want to chat. Social distancing and masks and everything makes it very difficult. We control what we can control. It’s not always what you want as a team.

“For our team talks we use these types of [online] platforms. You can’t sit in a room and discuss things like you used to be able to do. That will be the case until we know what the road ahead is going to be. But, so far, the players’ behaviour has been very good. They understand what it’s all about.” Which is returning to action safely: “The most important and exciting thing for us is that this is an opportunity to play cricket. It’s been a year when we haven’t had competitive cricket. It’s about getting on the park first.”

Anti-Covid travel regulations forced the scrapping of Australia’s tour in March and April — it was abandoned 10 days before the first match was to have been played — and of a visit to England in September. How did Moreeng and his players manage those disappointments?

“It’s safety first. Life is what matters at the end of the day. Yes, we wanted to play. We had just come back from a World Cup where we came close to getting into the final. So when that happened it was a blow for each and every one in the squad, because it was so close to the time [of the start of the series] when it was called off. But it was not in our control. We can only control what we can control.”

Like making sure everyone sticks to the rules until, and after, the next test. And the one after that …

First published by Cricbuzz.

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‘Panic’ at the crease leaves SA WT20 hopes hanging by a thread

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in London

THERE was no maiden half-century for Chloe Tryon in her 50th T20, not a lot of runs from anyone, and no justice for an attack that, not for the first time, bowled their hearts out.

Consequently there is the certainty that South Africa will have to bat exponentially better than they did against West Indies in St Lucia on Thursday if they want to stay alive in the World T20.

Having held the Windies to 107/7, South Africa had a chance to go top of group A.

Instead they crashed to 76 all out to lose by 31 runs to dwindle to fourth place out of five sides — and to leave their hopes of reaching the semi-finals hanging by a couple of threads.

If they don’t beat England and Bangladesh in their remaining first-round games, they go home. If they do win those matches, all sorts of outcomes are possible in a group that remains unsettled.

South Africa won’t beat anyone if they bat like they did on Thursday, when they lost nine wickets for 28 runs and the last five of those scalps for a solitary run.

They were 41/1 in the 10th over and dismissed 8.4 overs later, and they suffered three runouts along the way.

What the hell happened Dané van Niekerk?

“I guess panic, I don’t know,” South Africa’s captain told reporters in St Lucia. “Sometimes we just find a way to make it quite difficult for ourselves.

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what the thinking was. We spoke about having wickets in hand — we saw the bulk of the runs being scored at the end [of West Indies innings, when more than half the total was scored in the last eight overs].

“I thought that was the thinking of the batters in the middle — keep steady, keep rotating the strike and we’ll try win the game in the 19th over.

“I thought that was the thinking. But it looks like panic stations.”

Van Niekerk, who isn’t at all good at not telling us what she really thinks, seemed at a loss to explain it all.

“We’ve got a very good batting line-up. From No. 1 to 8, they can take the game away from you.

“We got ourselves into trouble early, bogging ourselves down. We played catch-up [cricket] with a lot of very soft dismissals.

“We just panicked and did stuff that some of the batters wouldn’t generally do.”

How to fix it?

“We need to bat. If you want to win a World Cup you need to chase down 108 convincingly. We didn’t do that.

“We need to do some introspection as batters and find out where we’re going wrong. Since the warm-ups we’ve been struggling to get to 100.”

South Africa stumbled to 79/9 in a warm-up against Australia and 72/9 against Pakistan, and things might well have turned out differently had the bowlers not limited Sri Lanka to 99/8 in their first match of the tournament on Tuesday — when they won by seven wickets with nine balls remaining.

Something similar seemed on the cards on Thursday, what with Shabnim Ismail screaming in with a gale blowing at her back to take 3/12 and Van Niekerk claiming 2/8 from three overs.

But Tuesday’s script was torn up, leaving South Africa under no illusions about what they are up against.

“We need to beat England and Bangladesh to give us the best chance to go through,” Van Niekerk said.

“It’s really plain and simple for us.”

Like many captains before her, she resorted to, “The sun’s going to shine tomorrow anyway …”

Then she remembered the days of rain that have turned the island into a floating bog, and said with a smile: “Let’s hope so, St Lucia.”

Where there’s humour, there’s hope.

Van Niekerk doesn’t mince words

“We didn’t fight for wickets; we just expected something to happen.” – Dané van Niekerk

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in Lisbon

YOU wouldn’t want to be in the dressingroom as part of a team that has played below themselves if that side is captained by Dané van Niekerk.

That’s going on what she said in public in the wake of South Africa’s thumping in Brighton on Tuesday.

Given the chance to blame at least part England’s 69-run victory to level the one-day series on bad fortune, Van Niekerk said: “It wasn’t hard luck. It was bad execution as a bowling unit and as a batting unit.

“I think we just expected it to happen, like it did in the first game [in Worcester on Saturday, when South Africa won by seven wickets]. That was the frustrating thing for me.

“We didn’t fight for wickets; we just expected something to happen.

“We didn’t sum up the conditions well.

“The scorecard speaks for itself.”

Van Niekerk put England in to bat on what turned out to be a belter, and the home side racked up 331/6 — their sixth-highest total and the second-highest yet made against South Africa.

“We spoke about it beforehand and we were all happy to bowl first,” Van Niekerk said.

“If we bowled second, the way we bowled we probably would have fetched leather as well.”

The visitors had a decent chance of staying in the mix in the first half of their innings before losing 9/103 to dwindle to a reply of 262/9.

“We bat until eight, nine. For only two batters to score above 40 was disappointing.”

Those two were Lizelle Lee, whose 117 off 120 balls with 13 fours and five sixes followed the unbeaten 92 she scored in Worcester, and Chloe Tryon, who hammered 44 off 31.

That Tammy Beaumont and Sarah Taylor had scored 101 and 118 made this the first game in the 1 118 ODIs played by women that the scoreboard groaned under the weight of three centuries.

On Friday the series will be decided in Canterbury, where South Africa won by one wicket in June 2000 and lost by 121 runs in August 2008.

That doesn’t matter in the here and now. What does is how South Africa might right themselves to clinch what would be their first series win in England, regardless of format and including last year’s World Cup, in nine attempts.

How might that be achieved?

“We need to do stuff better than them,” Van Niekerk said.

In times like these, a hard woman is good to find.