An error-strewn performance saw South Africa suffer a comprehensive 65-run loss to a fired up Australia in their opening T20 World Cup match in Manchester on Saturday.
The Australians may lack the aura of previous generations, but they produced a proficient street-wise display that will put the rest of the competition on notice.
Laura Wolvaardt’s team came into the Old Trafford fixture high on confidence but will have to put on their thinking caps as they navigate the rest of the tournament. There were some tactical miss-steps, with both bat and ball, while the fielding again left a lot to be desired.
A target of 173, was certainly well within reach, but like is so often the case in World Cups, the inability to build partnerships with Wolvaardt hampered SA’s innings.
The South African captain top scored with 44, but the next best contributor was Nadine de Klerk with 25. The Proteas couldn’t come to terms with superb planning from the Australians, who cut off the batters’ favorite scoring areas, while SA’s changed batting order smacked of confusion.
Annerie Dercksen was chosen to bat in the troublesome no.3 spot with Dane van Niekerk and Tazmin Brits’ lack of form and in the latter’s case confidence, seeing them omitted. Dercksen made just four while De Klerk, who has developed into one of the game’s best finishers, was drafted up the order to no.4, but struggled against the Australian spinners, using up 22 balls in her innings and crucially denying Wolvaardt the strike in the first half of SA’s power play.
That put pressure on the captain and the rest of the batting order, leading to Marizanne Kapp’s run out – a major turning point in the match – and the skipper’s dismissal when she drove her opposite number Sophie Molineux to the ubiquitous Georgia Wareham in the covers.
Australia reached 172/8 at a breezy Old Trafford, with Phoebe Litchfield, producing an attractive innings, that reversed the pressure Kapp and Shabnim Ismail, playing in her first international in three years, had exerted.
The Proteas new ball pair each picked up a wicket while sharing all six overs of the power play, but Litchfield’s aggression gave the Australian innings impetus. They ended the power play on 52/2, with Litchfield, mixing elegant off-side play, with powerful pulls and innovative scoops reaching 50 off 23 balls.
She was annoyed with herself however, when she drove a slower ball from Ayabonga Khaka to Wolvaardt at extra cover immediately after reaching that landmark.
Mlaba, who took 2/22, provided the control her captain needed and added the key wicket of Ash Gardner during a period when the Proteas rested the initiative away from Australia.
But Australia’s match awareness, which was more in tune than that of the Proteas, saw the veteran Ellyse Perry – playing in her 10th T20 World Cup – stitch together a crucial partnership of 58 for the sixth wicket with Wareham.
That stand came off only 38 bills and gave the Australians a foothold. Ismail was unable to complete her full allotment of overs after picking up a finger injury, when attempting to stop a firm drive off her own bowling from Perry. Australia scored 35 runs off the last four overs, benefitting from poor fielding from the South Africans.
That area, long a weakness, was a crucial difference in Saturday’s outcome. Australia caught better and their ground fielding not only cut off boundaries, but also saw them produce important stops inside the circle.
Besides Wolvaardt, who took a trio of catches, the third of those, an excellent grab in the covers to end Wareham’s innings, the rest of the Proteas were sloppy, with Tryon and Luus dropping chances, while there were a plethora of misses on the ground.
The defeat puts SA under pressure for the remainder of their group games, and they can ill afford a miss-step starting with Wednesday’s clash against Pakistan.
