Proteas Women on the cusp of World Cup semifinals, but batting woes still plague the side

20 Feb 2023

The Proteas Women have not played their best cricket at the ongoing T20 World yet, but with a comprehensive victory over Bangladesh on Tuesday they could peak at the right time heading into the knockouts.

South Africa have lost two of their three matches at the Women’s T20 World Cup thus far. But it’s not yet over for the host nation. A couple of fortuitous results in group 1 means that a victory over Bangladesh on Tuesday will seal a semifinal berth for the Proteas Women.

New Zealand thumped Sri Lanka — who beat the Proteas in the World Cup opener — by 102 runs on Sunday to leave the door open for SA to qualify for the next round.

Had Sri Lanka won, they would have progressed to the semifinal stage of a World Cup for the first time. However, the subcontinent team now heads home after two wins and two losses in the tournament.

The White Ferns are now on four points, having played all four of their group-stage matches and will progress to the semifinals if the Proteas Women fail to beat Bangladesh.

Reigning champions Australia have already sealed their passage to the knockouts as they sit atop the group having won all four of their matches.

Bangladesh have not won a match yet in the World Cup, having received thrashings from Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand.

The Proteas Women have not been at their best in their home tournament either with only one comprehensive result — against the White Ferns in Paarl, beating them by 65 runs.

The South African bowlers have kept the hosts in the hunt in all their matches. Marizanne Kapp, Shabnim Ismail and Nonkululeko Mlaba have been particularly impressive, picking up 11 wickets between them.

Batting woes

South Africa is expected to beat Bangladesh and subsequently reach their second consecutive semifinal in Women’s T20 World Cups.

Nonetheless, the Proteas don’t look half as threatening as they did in the previous iteration of the tournament in Australia in 2020.

While the bowlers have excelled and made the two losses look respectable and single-handedly destroyed the White Ferns — bowling them out for 67 runs — the batters have not come to the World Cup party yet.

South Africa has posted scores of 126, 132 and 124 against Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Australia respectively.

In all three matches, the team was not bowled out and faced all 20 overs. Those scores are just not good enough to win matches against teams like Australia and England — who the Proteas are likely to face in the semifinal, if they progress. These sides tally scores over 150 consistently.

There have only been two innings of substance from SA in the tournament. A 34-ball 40 by Chloe Tryon against New Zealand and a 36-ball 45 by opener Tazmin Brits against Australia. And in both cases, no other batter contributed more than 30 runs to help the team reach an emphatic total.

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The Proteas’ most technically correct and talismanic batter, Laura Wolvaardt — who is usually the epitome of consistency — has struggled in the tournament thus far. She has only scored 50 runs at a strike rate of 73.52 with a best score of 18.

Her slow rate of scoring has put immense pressure on a batting order that already looks a batter light.

Marizanne Kapp, who started her career toward the top of the order but has shifted down as age has crept up, finds herself occupying the all-important No 3 position in the order. Along with being the team’s main seam-bowler, there is a heavy load to carry this tournament for the 33-year-old.

The Proteas might yet elect to rope in an extra top-order batter in Lara Goodall moving forward in the tournament to help elongate the batting lineup.

This would give the more attacking players in Kapp and Tryon a launching pad toward the end of the innings.

Captain Suné Luus has shown glimpses of what she can offer, reaching the 20s in all three matches then losing her wicket before she is able to kick on.

South Africa have elected to play an extra all-rounder in either Anneke Bosch (against Sri Lanka) or Delmi Tucker (against New Zealand and Australia). This has worked to limited success with the two only bowling three overs between them and scoring 12 runs combined in the three matches.

‘100% attacking’

In order for the Proteas to compete with the best in the game, they need to score more runs. And for that to happen they need to be more attacking according to skipper Luus.

“[We want to be] 100% attacking. If you look at cricket around the world and where it’s going. Teams are posting 160-plus consistently. That’s the way cricket is going,” she said.

“I don’t think we can stay behind at 120s, 130s. So, we definitely need to be more attacking.”

The Proteas, however, are still at the infancy stage of implementing the more attacking brand of cricket, Luus admits.

“[We need to] back the brand of cricket we want to play, whether our backs are against the wall or not. Creating a brand of cricket and trying to do that every single game is something that we work and something that takes time,” said the skipper.

“We’re still a very young squad and we have some players in the team [playing in] their first World Cup. That’s going to take a while.”

“We have experienced players that need to take responsibility with that brand of cricket.”

If the experienced players do take responsibility for playing more attacking and scoring more runs the Proteas could be a threat heading into the closing stages of the tournament. DM

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Batting woes

‘100% attacking’