Time for hosts to bounce back

Hard-hitting Chloe Tryon insists South Africa know what they have to put right in their second game of the ICC Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup 2023 against New Zealand.

The hosts came unstuck against Sri Lanka in their first fixture on Friday night, making Sunday’s clash with the White Ferns of vital importance in their bid to emerge from Group A.

Middle order star Tryon, who was dismissed for a run-a-ball 10 at Newlands, is choosing not to dwell on that difficult defeat and is confident results will follow if the hosts stick to their guns.

“It was a difficult game to lose the way we did,” she said.

“As a group we try not to look into that too much. I think we’re a quality side and we’ve been playing really good cricket.

“As a batting unit, one innings doesn’t define us, so it’s just doing the basics right, I’m not sure we did that as a unit.

“I think if we play our brand of cricket we can come away with some wins.

“The message is quite clear, we know how we want to approach the rest of the tournament so just want to park what’s happened so far and make sure we’re ready to play New Zealand.”

One positive to have emerged from the opening day defeat was the feverish home support on show.

Tryon hopes her side can tap into that positive atmosphere as they aim to turn their fortunes around at Boland Park, adding that she still harbours hopes of winning the grand prize.

“You only get this once in your lifetime so it’s really exciting,” she said.

“The atmosphere at Newlands was amazing, seeing the support for women’s cricket, we really want to grow the game and we’ve seen it go from strength to strength in the last couple years.

“To have this here and hopefully take that win in the World Cup would be fantastic, but just putting women’s cricket on the map in South Africa is good.

“Pressure is a good thing but playing in a World Cup you’re always going to feel some pressure, there’s a lot of expectation on us as a team but we’re just trying to control what we can.”

Also looking to kickstart their campaign are New Zealand, who fell 97 runs short chasing 173 against defending champions Australia in their first outing.
Opener Suzie Bates hopes the team’s strength of character will shine through in what represents a must-win contest for both sides.

“We have no choice other than to pick ourselves up, show some resilience and make sure that we turn up on Monday night,” she said.

“This group’s very good at that and at moving on pretty quickly.

“I think the rest of the tournament is massive for us.

“You don’t want to drop two games in my opinion, so we’ve got three games against teams that we think we match up really well to.

“You can’t expect to start slowly and necessarily make the quarter final, so we’ve got a big, big game against South Africa.

“But if we win that, we’re on track to where we want to be for the semi-finals.”