Momentum Proteas captain, Suné Luus believes the team will have to be at their best and take their opportunities when they come up against England in their all-important 2022 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup semifinal in Christchurch on Thursday.
The knockout contest gets underway from 2pm local time (3am CAT) at the Hagley Oval and will be broadcast live on SuperSport Grandstand.
The Proteas wrapped up the round-robin stage with another cliff-hanger of a match against India on Sunday, claiming a hard-fought three-wicket victory while recording the second-highest successful run chase, which also included a dramatic finish with Mignon du Preez (52*) surviving a no-ball dismissal with three balls to play before hitting the winning runs.
On making a habit of coming out on top in close encounters and making the right decisions under pressure, Luus said:
“It has become a team effort,” she began. “Everybody is stepping up at the right times and everyone has been taking responsibility when they are out there in the middle and they have to do a job, that’s been our biggest thing.
“Normally we would kind of just give up, but over the last few years we have shown the fight, we have shown the character and the biggest thing for us is people taking responsibility for what they are doing.
“Like the other night, Mignon was there and knew she had to take it as deep as possible, she took that responsibility on herself to take us as deep and get us over the line,” Luus continued.
In tomorrow’s semifinal, the South Africans will be up against a familiar challenge of facing England in what will be a repeat of the 2017 World Cup semifinal where the English side narrowly triumphed by two wickets in Bristol.
When the two sides met earlier in this year’s tournament, South Africa clinched a confidence-boosting victory in a close battle as Marizanne Kapp (5-45 & 32) picked up her maiden five-wicket haul in One-Day International cricket and scored crucial middle-order runs to help seal a three-wicket win with four balls to spare.
Ahead of tomorrow’s match, the skipper said: “That was an extremely good game for us. I felt England played well as well, so I don’t think tomorrow is going to be any different, they are obviously going to bring their A-game and we just need to be extremely clinical.
“They have obviously had experience of playing in semi-finals and playing against us in the semifinal as well so tomorrow will just be about who is at their best for longer periods of time and who can stay focused for longer.
“We haven’t brought that (2017 semifinal) up. That was five years ago, teams have changed, and players have grown a lot since that semifinal. We are a way better team in the last five years so that’s in the past and we are looking to tomorrow as a whole new game, in a whole new World Cup,” she added.
Heading into the final-four clash, South Africa will take comfort in having key players playing their best cricket, with opening batter Laura Wolvaardt currently leading the run scorers’ list with 433 runs in seven matches at an average of 61.85 and five half-centuries, which also helped her soar to the top of the ICC ODI rankings.
Meanwhile, fiery fast bowler, Shabnim Ismail sits second on the wicket-takers’ list with 11 scalps and a best of three for 15 after coming off an impressive outing against India where she recorded figures of 2 / 11 in her last seven overs of the match to restrict the subcontinent side.
The semi-final against England will also mark a special occasion for Luus as well as top-order batter, Lizelle Lee who are set to notch up their 100th ODI cap for South Africa.
Winners of the South Africa-England game will play Australia in the final on Sunday at the Hagley Oval.