No Wolvaardt means big problems for Proteas

Good starts with both bat and ball were wasted as South Africa suffered an eighth defeat in their last 14 T20 internationals with Anneke Bosch explaining that the players need to reflect on implementation ahead of Wednesday’s series decider against Sri Lanka in East London. 

The tourists won by seven wickets in Potchefstroom on Saturday with their experienced skipper Chamari Athapaththu praising the impact of their young players for the win. Eighteen-year-old opener Vishmi Gunaratne scored an unbeaten 65 to help guide Sri Lanka to a modest target of 139, which they reached with seven balls to spare. 

She shared a stand of 76 for the fourth wicket with player of the match Kivisha Dilhari, who made 45 not out, having earlier also contributed with the ball when she had Bosch trapped lbw for 50.

“It is really good to see this as a captain. They handled the pressure well at the right time,” said Athapaththu. 

Whereas Sri Lanka’s young brigade took charge to seal a win, South Africa’s lesser known players were once again absent. It didn’t help that they lost skipper Laura Wolvaardt shortly before the start of the match due to illness, but the fact that they are so reliant on her and Marizanne Kapp, is worrying with the T20 World Cup only a few months away.

“It was a bit of a shock that Laura wasn’t playing, but mainly because it happened so late,” said Bosch. “We missed Laura obviously. She’s an experienced player and she’s got a real presence for us.”

While Nadine de Klerk performed competently as skipper, it is the rest of the players that need to do plenty of introspection ahead of the series finale in East London. Kapp and Wolvaardt dominated in Benoni last week when the Proteas won comfortably, but while Kapp made 44, besides Bosch’s 50, which came off 32 balls in which she also had plenty of good fortune, there was nothing else from the remaining batters.

“We started well, but lost our way in the last 10 overs. It was the same with the ball and in the field we let ourselves down as well.”

Having reached 84/2 by the 10th over thanks to Bosch and Kapp’s 58-run partnership for the second wicket, the rest of the batters could only add 54 in the second half off the innings with De Klerk’s 16 not out the next best score. 

With the ball, they had Sri Lanka 62/3 in the 11th over, but then watched as Gunarate and Dilhari displayed the kind of composure the Proteas lacked. 

Bosch bemoaned her own part in the team’s failure to reach a total in the region of 160. “I’m fairly pleased with my own performance. I’d like to have batted for longer because it wasn’t the easiest pitch to bat on and to have an in-batter for the second half of the innings was important.”

Looking ahead to the third match, Bosch said: “We will have to do better in all three departments, and go back, look at all our plans and the way in which we execute.”