Concerns deepen after Women Proteas’ scrappy T20 World Cup

The final of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in England on Sunday, 5 July, resulted in Australia becoming champions for a record seventh time. Meanwhile, for the first time in three years, South Africa failed to reach the final. They were booted out after suffering a 40-run semifinal defeat to a stronger and more driven English side on 2 July.

The loss brought an end to what had been an underwhelming tournament for the Proteas. They managed to scrape past lesser opposition in most of their group stage matches without playing their best cricket, but it was not enough against the game’s elite sides.

If head coach Mandla Mashimbyi was reeling with disappointment, he did not show it. Throughout the tournament, and particularly in the aftermath of the defeat to England, his public demeanour appeared indifferent. “It just didn’t work out this time around,” he said.

“Getting to the semis means we must have done something right, and I think we did do something right. Maybe not the best way in terms of how we wanted to do it. But at the end of the day, we wanted to get World Cup wins and we did get that.”

Mashimbyi was not ready to dissect the issues that were exposed during the tournament, stating he did not think it was “time for us to nitpick”. Once the dust settles, however, both he and the wider set-up will have to confront several structural concerns.

“You just lose and you learn, and we’ve learned a lot in this World Cup,” said Mashimbyi. “We’re going to go back to the drawing board and make sure that we put things in place that are going to make us even better and more dangerous. As a team, we know where our gaps are, and that’s the only thing we can do. We can’t change the results.”

Although it’s not so much about the Proteas losing, Mashimbyi will be concerned about how they lost. Because he was right when he said South Africa did not look like they wanted it enough.

Recurring problems

The tournament for South Africa was scratchy from the start. Their shortcomings were exposed on day one as Australia handed them a comprehensive 65-run defeat.

They made hard work of chases against Pakistan and Bangladesh, and relied on Marizanne Kapp’s all-round heroics against India. Their match against the Netherlands was, on paper, their most complete performance. However, they allowed the Dutch to score too freely during the Powerplay and failed to bowl them out at a time when their net run rate needed drastic improvement.

South Africa consistently struggled against spin, were unable to build substantial partnerships and lacked athleticism in the field. They also lacked bowlers in the middle overs who could sustain the pressure created by Kapp and Shabnim Ismail with the new ball.

Skipper Laura Wolvaardt, who was the leading run scorer at the 2023 and 2024 T20 World Cups, with 230 and 223 runs, respectively, managed only 134 runs this time at an average of 22 per game.

Her opening partner, Suné Luus, who was benched after the first two games, disagreed with suggestions that the team was overly reliant on Wolvaardt. “I don’t think so. It’s a team sport and you’re going to have your good days and your bad games,” Luus told Daily Maverick.

“A few months ago, Laura was struggling and everyone else chipped in and had big scores. That’s just cricket. It’s always great when she’s in great form and the runs are just flowing for her. But it does give a good balance to the team when everyone else can chip in, in their own way.”

However, without Wolvaardt’s iconic ­cover drives to shoulder much of the scoring burden, responsibility shifted to other ­batters, who could not consistently produce similar returns.

Perhaps Tazmin Brits was an exception. Brits finished fourth on the tournament’s run-scoring charts with 225 runs. After coming off the bench to play against India, she scored 40, followed by an unbeaten 114 against the Dutch, 20 against Bangladesh and 51 in the semifinal. Even so, her scoring rate was slow, and she rarely found a partner capable of acce­lerating alongside her.

Additionally, the batters struggled against spin. In the semifinal, England’s spinners took four for 77 in 12 overs, strangling South Africa’s chase. Pakistan took five wickets for 111 in 16 overs of spin, pushing the group stage encounter down to the wire.

With the ball, the opening pair of Kapp and Ismail were brilliant. Kapp was almost unplayable with the new ball, finishing with eight wickets in six matches at an economy rate of five. She and Ismail, aided occasionally by Ayabonga Khaka, formed the most dangerous attack, collecting 14 Powerplay wickets, the most of anyone in the tournament. Although Khaka was decent at the death, she appeared to lack clarity in her role, whereas Nadine de Klerk and Chloe Tryon were too inconsistent to be reliable.

Nonkululeko Mlaba continued to reinforce her status as one the world’s premier spinners. However, Mashimbyi acknowledged that the absence of a second specialist spinner alongside Mlaba was an issue. “With another front-line spinner, we will be better off,” he said.

The need to build depth

Ismail came out of retirement to compete in the tournament, with Mashimbyi acknowledging a lack of that prolific pace in the camp. However, several of the squad’s most experienced players, such as Brits, Kapp and Ismail, are approaching the latter stages of their careers. Dané van Niekerk, who returned to the T20 World Cup for the first time since 2020, endured an underwhelming tournament and her future may also hang in the balance.

In Ismail’s case, it paid off to rely on a retired player to return when a gap emerged, but the focus needs to shift towards building the next generation of players.

Mashimbyi arrived at the tournament declaring he was “already at Lord’s”. Instead, South Africa left England empty-handed, with their semifinal finish raising more questions than answers. Reaching the final four remains an exceptional achievement, but if the Proteas are serious about becoming world champions, honest introspection must define what comes next. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.