Africa-Press – South-Africa. Proteas opener Laura Wolvaardt says they’re not happy with their performance after losing 3-0 to England in an ODI series.
The Proteas crashed to a 109-run defeat in the third and final one-dayer on Monday, losing their first ODI series since 2019.
Wolvaardt scored her second consecutive ODI half-century in the series, scoring 56 off 51 in Leicester as the Proteas struggled to chase a record 371 to win.
The Proteas were bundled out for 262 despite half-centuries by Wolvaardt, Marizanne Kapp (62) and Chloe Tryon (70).
“It’s never easy getting a 370 run chase, we’ve never done it before, but if we wanted to get close, we needed a good powerplay and start,” Wolvaardt told reporters on Monday.
“From then on, it was always going to be tough to keep up with the run rate. We put up a decent effort, think we batted faster than we have recently. We just needed one or two more players to stick their hand in the middle order.
It resulted in a 3-0 clean sweep by England and ended SA’s run of six consecutive ODI series wins.
Wolvaardt admits the Proteas were completely outplayed in all facets of the game.
“Throughout the series, they were better than us in all aspects. Batting wise they were better, fielding was better and they were more consistent in their bowling,” said Wolvaardt.
“Overall, we missed the mark a little bit. Their middle order has been really good and our middle order hasn’t fired this series. They did the little things better than we did.”
Wolvaardt insists the Proteas will go back to the drawing board and start on a clean slate ahead of Thursday’s first T20 in Chelmsford.
“It’s our first ODI series loss in a good two to three years, so it’s something we haven’t felt in a long time,” said Wolvaardt
“We’re not happy with the play we played this series, we can’t pinpoint what went wrong. We’re going to have some deep brief sessions to see what exactly is going on.
“With such a quick turnaround to the T20s, we’ll be looking to start that on a clean slate as well and bring some new energy into the T20 series.”
The Proteas take on England in the three T20s from Thursday to Monday before embarking on their historic Commonwealth Games debut from 28 July to 8 August.
Wolvaardt says South Africa will take the positives out of the ODIs and hope to bounce back in the T20 series.
“We’ll still look to take positives out of it. So the batters, who are in form and hitting the ball well, will be taking confidence into the T20s series,” said Wolvaardt.
“The same goes for the bowlers, it’s not that big of a shift. Hopefully, we can have some refreshed energy going into that series and some better plans.”
Thursday’s T20 in Chelmsford starts at 20:00 SA time.
Proteas T20I squad against England:
Anneke Bosch (Senwes Dragons), Trisha Chetty (KZN Coastal), Nadine de Klerk (Western Province), Lara Goodall (Western Province), Shabnim Ismail (HKZN Coastal), Sinalo Jafta (Western Province) Marizanne Kapp (Eastern Province), Masabata Klaas (Senwes Dragons), Ayabonga Khaka (Lions), Suné Luus (Titans Ladies), Nonkululeko Mlaba (KZN Coastal), Tumi Sekhukhune (Lions), Andrie Steyn (Western Province), Chloé Tryon (KZN Coastal), Delmi Tucker (Western Province) Laura Wolvaardt (Western Province)
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