The Proteas women have an ideal opportunity to break the country’s duck in international cricket tournaments at next year’s T20 World Cup, to be held in South Africa.

“We want to win a World Cup at home. We want to win a World Cup in front of South Africans,” Proteas vice-captain Chloe Tryon told Daily Maverick.

“There will be pressure on, but having a home advantage is always good. You have the crowd behind you, you have supporters behind you, you’re playing in your own backyard, so it will be really exciting for us.

“We don’t want to focus too much on the end; if we play our best cricket we will make the finals and win it, but it’s about making sure we take it one game at a time. We don’t want to jump the gun and say, ‘We’re winning this thing,’ ” said Tryon.

The side have been excellent at recent 50-over and T20 World Cups but have fallen short at the semifinal hurdle on both occasions. Earlier this year, at the 50-over World Cup in New Zealand, the Proteas went into a semifinal against England as favourites – having thumped the English in the group stages – but fell to a 137-run defeat.

In 2020, they got through the T20 World Cup group stages undefeated and met tournament favourites and hosts Australia in the semifinal. They heartbreakingly lost in a rain-affected match by five runs.

“We’ve been playing a lot of good cricket leading up to semifinals in a World Cup,” said Tryon. “You want to be at 200% on the day but we haven’t been at our best. Leading up to a semifinal we have to make sure we’re playing our best cricket. We’ve been falling short with lack of discipline in different aspects of the game.

“It’s been a hurdle, frustrating for everyone. You want to win games for your country but you’ve got to be playing your best cricket on the day and you need someone who’s going to put up their hand and say, ‘I’m doing this today.’ It’s a small barrier, but it’s something a lot of us want to get over now.”

Tough tour of England

The Proteas women have been a steadily growing unit and have competed valiantly against much wealthier and better-resourced sides, such as England and Australia. However, this year, in their tour to England, they suffered their first bilateral tour defeat since 2020, as they lost six of the seven matches played.

“We’ve been playing really good cricket, winning series consistently.

“It’s bound to happen where changes happen in the team and everyone has to allow the transition to happen,” Tryon explained.

“It was unfortunate it went the way it did in England, but we’re going to have a series like that. You can’t win everything. You have to learn from these things. It was obviously disappointing, but there’s definitely more to come from this group.”

South Africa followed the England tour with their worst tournament display at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham since the 2013 50-over World Cup, when they failed to reach the semifinals.

The Proteas only won one match at the Commonwealth Games, against Sri Lanka, while losing to New Zealand and England. In the space of two months in England, the team only won one out of the 10 matches they played across the tour and Games.

“We were still really excited. The Commonwealth Games was a big thing; we wanted to win a medal. The disappointment was how close we came in the Games. We threw everything in there – it was just small things that we were doing wrong,” she explained.

“Throughout the England series it felt – towards the end of the tour – that everything was coming together, but it just wasn’t clicking the way we wanted it to.

“We figured, going into the Commonwealth Games, everything was going to click. We recognised that, we spoke about it, we wanted to rectify things. But it wasn’t meant to be for us,” she said.

One of the setbacks they suffered was Lizelle Lee’s decision to retire unexpectedly from international cricket before the start of the white-ball section of the tour.

Although Lee was not in the best form, she was one of the stalwarts of the team. Her departure, with her citing issues with her weight and a subsequent lack of support from Cricket South Africa, must have had a negative impact on team spirit.

Tryon was diplomatic about the episode: “It did come as a surprise; no one expected it. It was a bit of a shock to everyone. At the end of the day, you have to respect a player if they decide to make a decision like that.”

South Africa also played the latter part of the tour and the Commonwealth Games  without in-form all-rounder Marizanne Kapp, who travelled home to South Africa for family reasons. They were also without regular captain Dané van Niekerk, who has been out with an ankle injury all year.

It was never going to be easy

Opening bowler Shabnim Ismail was also out sporadically throughout the tour of England. With so many important players unavailable for selection it was never going to be easy for South Africa.

“It’s always hard to replace world-class players like Ismail and Kapp and Van Niekerk,” observed Tryon. “They were huge shoes to fill, but the girls have the potential to do that. They just need to get more game time and learn more about their craft and improve where they can.

“There were a lot of setbacks, but the girls [who] were on tour, they’re hard workers. They want to play and they want to do great for their country.

“Missing the senior experience of those three players was a little bit of a setback, but you can see the lessons that they took from it,” said Tryon.

“There’s a big World Cup coming up next year. There were some setbacks on this tour,  but there were also a lot of learnings. If we can take those lessons and make sure the group stays tight, we can overcome these small barriers. And then we can host the World Cup successfully.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.