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After a frustrating group stage at the T20 World Cup, the Proteas and their captain need to find the best version of themselves before Thursday’s semifinal against high-flying England at the Oval. The Proteas earned a ticket to the playoffs thanks to Australia beating India at Lord’s on Sunday. They were far from their best during the group stage, which was again illustrated by the manner of their win over Bangladesh in the first leg of the double-header at the home of cricket. “We won the game and got our points. It’s a bit frustrating how we got ourselves into that position,” said captain Laura Wolvaardt.“It was a mindset thing today [Sunday] — knowing we only needed to get 120, we batted within ourselves and didn’t really go to our positive options early enough. They were bowling really slow on a slowish wicket. In situations like that we have to take the braver options earlier.”With the exception of Marizanne Kapp against India, the tale of South Africa’s group campaign has been the lack of courage and situational awareness with the bat. Wolvaardt herself has not played with the same fluency as she showed in the series against India before the tournament. “A little bit,” she replied to a query about whether she was frustrated by her form. She has scored 97 runs in the five matches so far, with a highest score of 45 against the Netherlands. But even that innings was scratchy, as she failed to time the ball and found the outside edge on numerous occasions, the last of which led to her downfall. “Coming into the tournament I was feeling really good, so it’s kind of annoying to have lost it along the way. I may be trying to force it too much and not letting the ball come to me and play my normal game with the normal timing like I should. Hopefully some rhythm comes back. I’m feeling alright in the nets, and I just need one or two shots to go my way, and I think I’ll be back.”The rest of the batting has been inconsistent. Kapp was magnificent against India. Annerie Dercksen has shown power and resilience while adjusting to a new spot in the top order, while Tazmin Brits has played two crucial innings after being restored to the starting line-up.The rest haven’t fired yet, and they will need to against an England team that has played more freely than at any stage since Charlotte Edwards took over as their head coach last year. Their opener, Danni Wyatt-Hodge, is the tournament’s leading run-scorer with 282 runs, while spinners Sophie Ecclestone and Charlie Dean — who have both enjoyed success against South Africa in the past — have shared 15 wickets between them. After struggling on slow pitches in Manchester and Birmingham and then at Lord’s, Wolvaardt said her team was looking forward to the Oval, where the pace of the pitch was quicker.“We have a lot of power in our line-up. We’ve not been the best against slower spin in the tournament. It will work in our favour to be able to hit through the line a bit better at the Oval.”South Africa have a good record against England in knockout matches recently. They won semifinals in the T20 World Cup at Newlands in 2023 and in last year’s ODI tournament in India, where Wolvaardt made 169 runs.“They are looking very good at the moment. They have batters in good form. “Last year we were bowled out for 69 and then scored 300 against them. We’ll look at what we did well in that [second] game and hopefully do it again.”
