South Africa’s day was difficult even before they arrived at Boland Park on Monday to play New Zealand in the women’s T20 World Cup. Defeat would probably have taken them out of the race for the semi-finals. At the WPL auction, only four of their dozen players who entered their names were bought.
They couldn’t do much about what a bunch of moneyed franchise owners across the world thought, but how they performed was up to them. They had played far below themselves in the tournament opener at Newlands on Friday, losing to Sri Lanka by three runs after totalling only 129/4. Another defeat and they were in danger of being relegated to the kitchen at their own party.
Much the same could be said about New Zealand. In search of 174 to beat Australia at Boland Park on Saturday, they were bowled out for 76. And just two of their 19 players on the auction block landed gigs.
The day ended far better for South Africa than New Zealand. They scored 132/6 and then dismissed the Kiwis for 67. How was it possible that a team who had played as poorly as they did in Cape Town could re-invent themselves so emphatically just three days later?
“We spoke about it just after the Sri Lankan game,” Chloe Tryon, who scored and took 2/12 from three overs, said. “We sat up in the change room and we said we’ll leave it here. We knew we had a quick turnaround. We know we had to make sure that, going into the next game, we were doing the right things. I think everyone came with the mindset today of just working really hard.
“We put up a score of 130-plus, which I thought was a little bit short. But every bowler knew what they needed to do, and you can see the fire burning in everyone – that they wanted it so badly. So we’re making sure we still have that fire burning, and being ruthless as a bowling unit.”
Sophie Devine had the tougher job. How had the team she leads slumped to two of New Zealand’s lowest five T20I totals in the space of three days? “I’m not sure too many words can describe the disappointment, the embarrassment. That’s not good enough for an international cricket side and I take a lot of that as captain and how I lead this team. It’s not good enough.”
South Africa’s resurgence will be tested on Saturday, when they take on overwhelming favourites Australia at St George’s Park. But New Zealand, who play Bangladesh at Newlands on Friday and Sri Lanka at Boland Park on Sunday, had all but given up on reaching the knockout rounds.
“Honest answer, it’s bloody tough to make it now,” Devine said. “The way that our runrate’s absolutely out the window [at -4.050] is probably a sign of we’re going to have to score about 8,000 runs and restrict Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to about 20. Funnier things have happened, I guess.
“But we’ve put ourselves in this position and we’ve got to be honest with that. That doesn’t mean those games aren’t valuable to us, and we’ve got to hold ourselves to account. We’ve got to play with real pride every time we put on the New Zealand shirt. It means a lot to this group.
“Yes, we’re going to hurt a lot and that might take a couple of days. But we’ve got to let it out and we’ve got to figure out why.”
Had the WPL auction fuzzed her players’ focus? “I think you’re living under a rock if you don’t think it was a distraction, it was bizarre. The timing of it was obviously not ideal, but it is what it is. There were lots of discussions among our players about it. I don’t know what the right or the wrong way was to handle it, but we spoke about it openly and how it affected us. But, the bigger picture stuff, it’s incredible for women’s sport and women’s cricket to see some of the money that was thrown around.”
Devine spoke of “recovering, mourning, I don’t know what you call it” in the wake Monday’s game. But the overall impression she gave was of anger. How would that be expressed? Would her players be the target?
“It’s probably going to come out in tears,” she said, before falling into the softest silence. “Yeah… now you’ve set me off.” When she found her voice again, her eyes shone. “It’s really hard to lose games of cricket like that. I’d much rather we went down swinging and get bowled out for 12 than not show our true ability and be pumped like that.
“Full credit has to go to South Africa, they were the much better team. But me getting angry is not going to solve anything. I don’t know the answer, I honestly don’t. And that’s where it’s really hard. I wish there was some sort of magic bullet that could fix it all and we could come right within the next couple of hours.
“But I don’t know the answer and that’s what we’re going to have to figure out as a team and that’s what we’re going to have to go through as a group – figure it out together because we’re in this for the long haul, and that’s what I love about this group. We haven’t played to our potential and it’s been upsetting, and it’s been embarrassing and disappointing.
“But I’d give anything to play for this group, and for the girls who are in that shed upstairs right now, me getting angry isn’t going to do anything about it. If anything I need to get round them and wrap my arm around them. We’ve got to find the positives but it’s going to be a pretty messy 24 hours.”
Attention. There’s a captain on deck.
