T20 World Cup: Proteas ready for first encounter with Scotland

Zaahier Adams

The Proteas are set to face an unknown quantity when they meet Scotland for the first time in a must-win ICC T20 Women’s World Cup clash in Dubai today.

Scotland are making their debuts at the ICC T20 World Cup and have found the going tough in their opening two matches - losing to both Bangladesh and West Indies.

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Last year’s runners-up, the Proteas, have enjoyed a mixed bag of results thus far. Laura Wolvaardt’s team demolished the Windies by 10 wickets before going down to England by seven wickets on Sunday.

This has left the Proteas with the scenario of having to win their last two matches, while also focusing on improving their net run-rate, if they are to qualify for the semi-finals. The Windies are currently in second place above the Proteas behind group leaders England due to a superior NRR.

"There is always pressure in World Cups. (Monday’s) defeat, we are now left with two must-win games. We have never played Scotland before, so it is a bit of unknown territory, but the mindset is really good,” Proteas all-rounder Nadine de Klerk said.

“We haven’t played them before, so it makes it a bit more difficult to prepare for a team that you haven’t played before. But there is a lot of footage on them and a lot of them have played in The Hundred, played in England, and also played the Qualifiers before.

“Our main focus is to win the next two games. I think we're still pretty confident in our squad. The net run rate in these short competitions is always really important.

“The main focus is today’s game and how we go about our business. But obviously, we want to win the game first and then try and focus on the net run-rate and those sorts of things," De Klerk added.

Due to the sluggish surface and heavy outfield in Sharjah, along with England’s disciplined bowling unit, the Proteas batting unit were sucked into a defensive mindset in the second match of their campaign.

This is in contrast with recent showings where the Proteas batters have switched their style to a much more attacking gameplan under new batting coach Baakier Abrahams.

De Klerk believes it's still a plan in progress, but that the Proteas will certainly be looking to play off the front foot today.

“We knew it (the pitches) was going to be slow coming into this tournament. We worked hard on facing spin with our new batting coach Baakier about how we are going to face spin, and how we are going to go about our business.

“(Monday), maybe it didn't go according to plan, but we’ve been batting well as a unit, coming from Pakistan where the conditions were tough too.

“We’ve spoken about being aggressive and positive. I know it might not look like that in these conditions, but with must-win games, it is really important that our batters put their feet down and get some scores on the board and back the bowlers up.”

Proteas Women Squad: Laura Wolvaardt (capt), Anneke Bosch, Tazmin Brits, Nadine de Klerk, Annerie Dercksen, Mieke de Ridder, Ayanda Hlubi, Sinalo Jafta, Marizanne Kapp, Ayabonga Khaka, Suné Luus, Nonkululeko Mlaba, Seshnie Naidu, Tumi Sekhukhune, Chloé Tryon