South Africa ready for tournament opener
- South Africa get their World T20 campaign underway against Sri Lanka on Monday and England take on Bangladesh in Saint Lucia; Match reports, unedited videos of post-match press conferences, audio clips, audio news release and complete transcripts will be available on the Online Media Zone
Dane van Niekerk, the South Africa Women's captain, says her team are ready and prepared for their opening match at the ICC Women’s World T20 on Monday.
South Africa will begin their campaign at the Daren Sammy Stadium, Gros Islet, Saint Lucia against Sri Lanka who shared points with England after an abandonment in their first match. The match will be the second fixture of the day that will begin at 20h00 local time (GMT -4).
Speaking ahead of the fixture Dane van Niekerk said:
“We had some brilliant preparation for the World Cup. We’ve had a month here, so we can't complain about preparation.”
“At the end of the day at the World T20 you just need to sharpen up your skills. It's not an event you come turn up to and have time to teach yourself skills. The skills should be there. It's just fine tuning them today.”
“At the end of the day, as a batting unit we need to step up. We have been speaking in depth about obviously what we want and can achieve as a batting unit.”
“I think our bowling unit has been brilliant so far, and I can't fault the bowling. It's just getting the batting unit to play all together. But I think we can do that and we have the firepower within our batting lineup to put in a performance like we saw in the opening match in Guyana.”
In the opening match of the day’s fixtures in Saint Lucia, England will take on a Bangladesh side that lost their opener against hosts Windies in Guyana.
Coach, Mark Robinson, said England are hungry to get their campaign underway:
“It looks like a decent wicket, but we’ve lost all our chances to know what’s going to happen– we’ll be going in a bit blind. It’s that ability to try to adapt as quickly as you can. We’re going to have to work out very quickly what’s a good score.”
“Bangladesh can be dangerous if they get on a roll. What you’ve got to try to do is not give them an ‘in’. If you can take their confidence away quite quickly, they will fold. It’s a case of trying to start the game as well as you can.”
England’s match against Bangladesh will start at 16h00 local time (GMT -4) at the Daren Sammy Stadium.
Media releases, select images and audio news releases of all tournament matches will be available on the Online Media Zone. For complete schedule of tournament matches clickhere.**