Proteas women aiming for strong finish to ODI series

Head coach Hilton Moreeng remains positive around the batting and bowling departments ahead the Momentum Proteas’ final one-day international (ODI) encounter against England at the County Ground in Leicester on Monday.

The clash gets under way from 3pm CAT (SA, GMT+2), with South African fans able to view it live on SuperSport Grandstand and Cricket.

England head into the series finale with an unassailable 2-0 lead after claiming two convincing five-wicket and 114-run victories in the opening two matches, with South Africa now looking to end the 50-over leg of the tour on a high.

When facing the media ahead of Monday’s game, Moreeng was asked whether he is worried about the team’s performance, particularly around the bowling attack.

“I wouldn’t use the word worried; it is just that we are more frustrated and disappointed as a team because we all know they are a much better unit than what they are giving thus far,” the coach noted.

“It is just one of those on the day, the execution hasn’t been what we want it to be, although preparation and build up have been going extremely well and it has just been on matchdays that things haven’t clicked.

“Overall, it is not as worrying for us, we are addressing it. We have a very proud unit, and they are looking forward to putting it right,” he added.

The third and final ODI forms part of the multi-format tour between South Africa and England which also included the once-off test match as well as the three T20 Internationals (T20I) getting under way from Wednesday, 21 July.

The host nation currently leads the standings with six points to two after picking up two points from the drawn test and by winning both opening matches of the ongoing series.

Having also travelled directly from a six-match, ODI and T20I tour to Ireland before arriving in the United Kingdom, the Proteas Women have played nine international matches as well as three warm-up games since departing from South Africa on 29 May.

Although Moreeng refrained from using it as an excuse for the team’s displays, he did allude to the challenges the players have faced, particularly with the group undertaking a tour of this scale, that included a first test match in eight years, for the first time in their careers.

“This is a first multi-format tour for most of the players, so most of them didn’t know what to expect because test cricket hasn’t been a format that they’ve played. Once we came out of the test match, the turnaround time they had was what was required and what was different for them,” he noted.

“To be able to make sure we performed well in the test match, and we then have a turnaround time of less than a week to make sure you can start playing the white ball again; that’s one thing they had to deal with, and I think it was very tough on the bodies because they didn’t know what to expect. Once they got going and had a feel of it, we started getting better

“The squad is in good health and other than that, it just the mental side of things that the players have been battling a bit with in between the two, white ball and red ball,” Moreeng added.

Similarly to their previous tour to England four years ago, where the home side claimed a 2-1 series victory, the Proteas will be searching for a repeat of the consolation win in the last encounter like they did in Worcester in 2018 with a seven-wicket triumph in the last game.