The SA team are targeting their fourth successive World Cup final, across both limited overs formats.
With an impressive recent history against England in play-off matches, captain Laura Wolvaardt says the Proteas will be leaning on that experience on Thursday night, but she admits her team are bracing for a tough battle against the home side in their Women’s T20 World Cup semifinal in London (7.30pm start).
At the 2023 edition of the T20 World Cup, the South African side edged England by six runs in Cape Town to reach the final, and at last year’s 50-over World Cup they thumped the English team by 125 runs in Guwahati to progress to the trophy contest.
Those results, Wolvaardt felt, would give the national side confidence that they could put up a fight in an attempt to book their place in their fourth successive global final (in both formats).
“We’ve been able to beat England twice in knockout phases in World Cups, so it’s not like it’s super foreign territory for us,” the skipper said on Wednesday.
“I think we can sort of beat anyone on the day when we play some very good cricket, so we’re just trying to think back to those tournaments and what we did well in those semifinals, and what sort of mindset we were in.
“But I think this is a team that is really able to rise to big occasions, so hopefully everyone is at their best tomorrow.”
Wolvaardt acknowledged the crowd at The Oval would be in overwhelming support of England, who had not reached the T20 World Cup final since they won the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2009.
However, she also believed the home support would place significant pressure on the hosts to book their spot in the trophy decider against top-ranked Australia at Lord’s on Sunday.
“I think it will be a pretty sold-out crowd supporting the opposition, so it will be a nice challenge for us, and getting to play the hosts in a tournament is always pretty exciting,” Wolvaardt said.
“I think they’ll have a bit more pressure on them with all of that support, so hopefully we can put together a good game of cricket.”
While she was satisfied with the performances of the bowling unit during the group stages, Wolvaardt hoped the Proteas batters (including herself) would stand up and deliver.
“With the bat we probably haven’t been at 100%. I think all of our batters will admit they’d like to score a bit more runs,” she said.
“But I think it’s a pretty exciting thing because when they do come off, hopefully in the next game, it’ll be a pretty good game.”
