Cricket South Africa (CSA) has insisted the big mandate they have given to the Proteas Women to win the next T20 World Cup is a fair ask, based on what they have done to develop the team and sport over the years.
SA is set to host the Women’s T20 World Cup in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape from early February next year.
The Proteas and nine other top nations — Australia, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, England, India, Ireland, Pakistan and West Indies — will compete for higher honours.
Looking at the fact that women’s cricket in SA is yet to turn professional, CSA’s mandate to the Hilton Moreeng-coached side is likely to come as being over-ambitious.
But CSA’s director of cricket Enoch Nkwe said this was not a mandate blurted out of the excitement of being the hosts or just placing the team under unnecessary pressure. “We had a plan which started back in 2013 where we targeted the year 2019 for us to be at World Cups and try to win them,” Nkwe said.
He said the federation has done a lot to strengthen women’s cricket since 2013, including beefing up the national team’s personnel and ensuring local players get used to playing at the highest levels.
SA has a number of players competing in some of the world’s top T20 leagues across the globe, such as Australia’s Big Bash League, The Hundred in England and the Caribbean Premier League.
“We did what we needed to do to ensure that we work with our women’s national team to get to the point where they can go to a World Cup to compete and win,” Nkwe said.
“All those building blocks (have been put together) because women’s cricket in 2013 was very amateur. If you look at where women’s cricket is today, it’s pretty much professional. We have 15 national contracted players, we have high performance contracts and we also have domestic contracts.
“If you look at where we started and where we are, we have grown massively. Thanks to sponsor Momentum as well, they played a huge role in women’s cricket in our country.”
For Moreeng, this does bring pressure to him and the team and the coach believes he has a team that can achieve the huge mandate. “Pressure will always be there,” he said.
“I think if you look at the past World Cups that have been played, Australia won the T20 World Cup in Australia and in 2017 England won the 50-overs World Cup in England and judging by that, the pressure will always be there on the host nation.
“We must do everything we can to win the World Cup, but we are looking at it as a challenge for the team because we have been to so many finals and now the opportunity presents itself to get ourselves into the final and hopefully win it. That would be a great achievement for the team.”
Under Moreeng, the Proteas have shown excellent growth to be counted among the best cricket sides in the world.
In the ICC T20 world rankings, the Proteas are in fifth spot and it’s no surprise to learn that the players have set themselves the goal to win the first Women’s World Cup to be staged on African soil.
Moreeng’s team have been together for some time now and have a good mixture of young, talented stars and experienced campaigners.
A player like Shabnim Ismail has been to seven T20 World Cups. Then there is Dane van Nierkek and one of the most destructive batters in Marizanne Kapp.
At this year’s 50-overs World Cup, the Proteas made the semifinals where they lost to runners-up England. The Proteas were also on the semifinals lists in 2014 and 2020 T20 World Cups and could go all the way in local conditions.
The Proteas are in Group A with Australia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
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