Cape Argus E-dition

PROTEAS STEP INTO THE UNKNOWN AT TAUNTON

STUART HESS stuart.hess@inl.co.za

TOMORROW’S first Test is a novelty for the South African women’s team.

Perhaps that explains the excitement among the young players for the occasion – which the Proteas coach, Hilton Moreeng, said caught him and his staff off guard.

It is only South Africa’s 13th ever Test, having played the first in 1960. They’ve only won one, against the Netherlands in Rotterdam in 2007. That match remains the only Test Shabnim Ismail ever played. She’s one of five players in the current squad with Test experience, with wicketkeeper Trisha Chetty set to play her third match, if selected.

It is rare, something which Karen Smithies, the former England captain and now Northerns Titans team manager, can attest to. She played 15 Tests between 1987 and 1999. “It sounds like a lot, but it was over 12 years,” said Smithies, who captained England in 10 of those matches.

England play more Test matches than South Africa, but it’s not as if their players are more experienced than South Africa’s. In the eight years since South Africa’s last Test in 2014, England have played just five.

It’s a format that’s been given little opportunity to grow by the International Cricket Council (ICC), and in a recent interview in England, the ICC independent chair Greg Barclay said that women’s Tests will not be “part of the landscape moving forward to any real extent”. T20 leagues are filling up the calendar and for the women’s game the greatest opportunity for growth is seen as being in the shortest format. The Women’s Big Bash is an established competition in Australia, as is The Hundred in England, while talks about a women’s IPL grow louder every day. The Commonwealth Games has a women’s T20 competition on its schedule next month. Although Moreeng admitted he’d like to see some form of three-day cricket domestically, the challenge is how to fit it into the summer schedule, and how a cash-strapped Cricket

South Africa – still struggling to find sponsors for domestic men’s competitions – will fund such a venture.

While Moreeng was pleased with how they managed the three-day warm-up match against England A, which ended on Thursday, he knows a more challenging examination awaits at the County Ground in Taunton. Reflecting on South Africa’s last Test against India in Mysore in 2014 – in which SA were defeated by an innings and 34 runs – Moreeng said the team lost focus for one session. “We were well in the game and then lost concentration after tea, and then lost the session and the Test. That is a lesson for the discipline required for this game, and how we have to stay focussed and on the button,” he said.

Although England can no longer call on

Anya Shrubsole (retired from the game) and Katherine Brunt (retired from Test cricket), they still have Knight, who will be playing her tenth Test, and seven others who played out the exciting draw against Australia in

Canberra earlier this year, in their squad. South Africa must look to its bowlers, said Smithies, to try and put England under pressure.

“They have a really good bowling line-up. Depending on conditions on the day, I’d be inclined to use the strength early on, and see where that takes them. That bowling line-up is the one to watch,” said Smithies.

The first ball will be bowled at noon tomorrow. The match will be broadcast on SuperSport.

SQUADS

South Africa: Anneke Bosch, Trisha

Chetty, Nadine de Klerk, Lara Goodall, Shabnim Ismail, Sinalo Jafta, Marizanne Kapp, Ayabonga Khaka, Lizelle Lee, Suné Luus (capt), Nonkululeko Mlaba, Tumi Sekhukhune, Andrie Steyn, Chloé Tryon, Laura Wolvaardt.

England: Heather Knight (capt), Emily Arlott, Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Kate Cross, Alice Davidson-Richards, Freya Davies, Charlie Dean, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Amy Jones, Emma Lamb, Nat Sciver. Travelling reserve: Issy Wong

Pitso Mosimane’s success in North Africa is a feat to celebrate

– MATSHELANE MAMABOLO

to stream

SPORT

en-za

2022-06-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-06-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

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