The SA women's team are proven 50-over combatants, but in the shortest format, they've been found wanting against the best.
As if they didn't need a baptism of fire, their opening ICC Women's T20 World Cup against England at the WACA Ground in Perth today is the hardest opening game examination available.
England, capably led by Heather Knight for a second consecutive shortest format World Cup, are one of the tournament favourites behind Australia and India. They've also triumphed over SA in past encounters.
They were in the same group in 2018 and SA were well beaten in Saint Lucia.
England have nine players back from the squad, while SA have maintained a core of consistency with 11 from the 2018 West Indies edition.
The difference was that England's unit was able to drag itself from second in Group A to the final where they were consummately beaten by Australia.
SA saw off Sri Lanka and Bangladesh without much effort, but the West Indies and England proved to be the immovable impediments.
Those teams again stand in the way of SA and a second-ever T20 World Cup play-off spot. SAwere semifinalists in the Bangladesh-held tournament in 2014.
Interestingly, they have six survivors from that tournament.
That half-dozen are now the senior players from who plenty will be expected.
Current captain Dane van Niekerk was a junior member at the time and so was Chloe Tryon, Shabnim Ismail, Trisha Chetty, Sune Luus, Lizelle Lee and Marizanne Kapp.
Mignon du Preez, who captained the team, is the most senior batting head.
Van Niekerk has stated her happiness about being in Perth where the WACA Ground still retains the traditional pace, bounce and carry that made it a pleasant venue for their male counterparts.
Such was the bond the men's team had with the WACA that they never lost a Test there.
A pacy Perth pitch will suit England, but the same also applies to SA, who have packed some reasonable speedsters in Tumi Sekhukhune and Ismail.
The pressure though on the women's team is different. They've got a tricky Group B they need to get out of.
After the England game, they've got newbies Thailand in Canberra on February 28 before the critical Sydney fixtures against Pakistan (March 1) and the West Indies (March 3).
Those games will determine whether SA will progress past the group stage because while the West Indies and Pakistan are inconsistent, they pose a tournament threat that at no stage can be discounted.
What SA have to their slight advantage in the other games, barring the England fixture, are players with Women Big Bash League experience. Laura Wolvaardt, Luus, Tryon, Kapp and Van Niekerk are just some of the players who know and understand Australian conditions.
Making this experience work at this level is going to be critical for the Proteas. Conditions in the West Indies were not at any stage conducive to fluent cricket, which won't be the case in Australia and its high-summer sunshine.
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