South Africa seek consistency at Women’s WT20
“I think I've said it 100 times: we can beat anyone in the world, it just depends on what we do on the day," van Niekerk said on Tuesday, 23 October, ahead of the team's departure for the tournament.
“In the recent past, we haven't been a consistent unit, and that's been our downfall. Somewhere it needs to click, and hopefully it will in a big tournament.”
Offfff to the Windiesss we go!! 😁🏏😁 #wearemore #alwaysrising pic.twitter.com/03IpfczQ4W
— Lizelle Lee (@zella15j) October 23, 2018
Van Niekerk feels the team with the best bowling attack will win the tournament, so the team’s focus will be on that aspect and “getting our plans 100%”.
But having said that, she knows it's important that the batters, especially the top order, have to fire. In Lizelle Lee, they have one of the most explosive opening batters, and vice-captain Chloe Tryon has shown she can come in and fire in the middle. All of Laura Wolvaardt, Sune Luus, Mignon du Preez and van Niekerk herself have impressed, but they know they will have to click as a group.
Having recently played in the West Indies, where they drew the one-dayers and the five-match T20I series, they will be hoping to make the most of their familiarity with the conditions as well.
"In the last three tours, we've only had two batters that rocked up. We need four or five batters to rock up and do really well for us,” said van Niekerk. “In the last two weeks that we've been home, a lot of our batters have had time for some introspection, and they're ready to go.”
Hilton Moreeng, the coach, agrees with her. "The Powerplay is going to be key," he said.
Proteas coach Hilton Moreeng discusses the omission of Raisibe Ntozakhe. They want to give her the best opportunity to make a successful comeback #WT20 #ProteasWomen pic.twitter.com/81mkIczkR3
— Proteas Men (@ProteasMenCSA) October 23, 2018
"We've got two subcontinent teams in the group and in those kinds of conditions, they'll have three to five spinners in the team. We need to counter that with the bat. With the hard ball up front, we need to capitalise, because it can get very difficult in the middle period.
“For us, as a batting unit we need to work on our consistency. One of the top three needs to bat as deep as they can to give us a chance on the day.”
South Africa are in Group A, alongside England, hosts and defending champions Windies, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. They begin their campaign on 12 November against Sri Lanka at St Lucia.