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Cape Town - South Africa are looking to make it three wins in a row when they take on Sri Lanka in the third and final women’s T20 international at SuperSport Park tomorrow.
They won the second match by a narrow, two wickets with one ball to spare to clinch the series but all-rounder Marizanne Kapp is looking for a much improved performance from the team, in particular the batting unit.
“We’ve not played our best cricket at all,” she said during her pre-match media briefing at SuperSport Park this afternoon.
“I think we were a bit lucky coming out on top there but having said that, we’re missing players like Lizelle Lee and Chloe Tryon which leaves quite a big hole in your batting line-up. It was good to see the youngsters take us over the line, but we need to do better if we want to win tomorrow. I was up there at number three, I should have ended the game there. But if we come out on top playing the way we did, I’ll take it any day.”
Kapp admitted that the team still had some distance to go before they get to where they want to see themselves in world cricket and with the introduction of their crop of youngsters, the coaches have a few more combinations to consider as they begin to plot their way towards the 2020 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. She believes that having young players with nerves of steel will serve the team in good stead in the future.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” she continued.
“We’re still trying out a few new combinations and we have a few new faces in our squad as well, so we’re still working things out and hopefully we can just get better as we get along. It’s good to see such fearlessness from the younger players, to still come out on top and have them in at the end there to take us over the line, that’s a big learning curve for them and we’ll take that any day. Hopefully tomorrow’s match will be a bit more clinical.”
The team has seen a few changes since their disappointing turnout in the 2018 World T20. Kapp is pleased with the heightened sense of competition in the squad and believes that the measures that Cricket South Africa have put in place says a lot about the organization’s commitment to supporting the national women’s team in their ambition to become world beaters.
“It’s good signs for us because it shows how seriously CSA is about taking women’s cricket forward. We can’t settle for second best. We’re at that stage now where if we don’t make our fitness and if we don’t score runs or play our part, we’re gonna have to bring in youngsters and I think that just shows where we’re at as a team and where we want to see ourselves in the months and years to come,” she concluded.
The women’s T20i will start at 13:00 and will be live on SuperSport 2.
