The Proteas’ quest for World Cup glory begins this weekend when the women’s side plays Sri Lanka in their ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2023 opener on Friday, 10 February.
South Africa will then complete their Group A fixtures with ties against New Zealand (13 February), the defending champions Australia (18 February) and Bangladesh (21 February), in an effort to qualify for their second straight T20 World Cup semifinal following their impressive showing at Australia 2020.
The T20 Women's World Cup will be held for the first time on African soil from 10-26 February 2023, and it'll be the first senior ICC World Cup hosted in SA since 2007.
Fresh off a Tri Series win against West Indies, and India, well settled on home soil, the Proteas are ranked among the danger teams.
Rated fifth in the Women's T20I Rankings, the Proteas will look to take their Tri Series winning form into the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2023.
The Proteas women are in a tough Group 1 alongside Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh.
England, India in Group B
Group B is made up of England, India and Pakistan, as well as the West Indies and Ireland.
The top two teams in the group will advance to the semifinals before the champions are crowned in a grand finale on Sunday, 26 February under the picturesque views of Table Mountain at Newlands.
'Semifinals the minimum'
Regarded by many as “the best of the rest” in the pursuit of chasing down favourites Australia, defending champions England and India, SA captain Suné Luus believes a semifinal spot is the minimum expectation even with the loss to injury of Dane of Van Niekerk who didn’t make the World Cup squad.
On Tuesday 31st January, the Proteas named their 15-player squad, with all-rounder Dane van Niekerk ruled out of the global showpiece.
Van Niekerk was deemed unfit and not eligible for World Cup selection. Van Niekerk failed in one category, needing to run 2km in nine minutes and 30 seconds and then missing the mark by 18 seconds.
Luus will once again take over the captaincy armband, a role she has carried on for the last year and a half.
For the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2023, SuperSport will be taking the world broadcast feed which will offer:
- 30-minute build-up featuring the live toss, captains’ interviews, pitch report and team/player features.
- Change of innings interval programme, including a review of the first innings and a preview of the second. There will also be engaging feature content and analysis segments.
- The wrap will include the captains’ chat, a brief round-up of the match and a look ahead to the next match, before ending with a match closer.
All 23 matches will be broadcast live on SuperSport.
SuperSport Cricket, Grandstand and Action will be the channels carrying all the thrilling runs, wickets and catches.
