JOHANNESBURG - Shabnam Ismail bowling to Mignon du Preez in the final of the Women's Big Bash League in Sydney last week, was just the kind of tonic the Proteas women’s team needed after a protracted period on the sidelines because of the coronavirus lockdown.
Seeing two of South Africa’s most experienced players lock horns in the most high profile match in the biggest women’s franchise competition in the world, certainly put a smile on the face of national coach Hilton Moreeng, and gave a major lift to the rest of their teammates.
Ismail emphatically won the battle with her match-winning four-over spell, which earned her the ‘player of the final’ accolade.
The 32-year-old fast bowler picked up two wickets, the most notable being Australian captain Meg Lanning, often a thorn in the side of Ismail and the South African team. “Look back to our semi-final (in this year’s T20 World Cup), she was the difference; she stabilised Australia’s innings. She’s a very consistent player,” said Moreeng.
Lanning has too often won the individual battle with Ismail, but anyone who knows the South African new ball bowler, knows she’s all about the fight. “She's a very competitive cricketer, if you put her in a club game now, she wants to be the best player on the field. The way she created chances against Lanning, knowing she’s the best player and the way Shabnim bowled, will encourage her over the next year,” Moreeng added.
Ismail is one of South Africa’s most important players as is Du Preez, and both, along with a number of the South Africans who went to the Big Bash, produced critical performances for their respective sides.
“The most important thing for us was they could play cricket. We had 10 players exposed to competitive cricket, which is a good number for us.”
Eight of those were in the WBBL (Dane van Niekerk, Marizanne Kapp, Chloe Tryon, Nadine de Klerk, Lizelle Lee, Laura Wolvaardt, Du Preez and Ismail), while Ayabonga Kaka and Sune Luus played in the abbreviated IPL in Dubai.
“With us going into these big events now, you want players who have experience of semi-finals and finals, and you want that to rub off on the rest of the players. So that is something we want to do, get into the last two, we’ve been in
the last four, three times recently, now it’s to get into the last two more often and we’ll need those players to do that for their teams and if we have four or five players do that on a consistent basis then we will be on the right track.”
Ismail and Du Preez join Lee, Van Niekerk and Kapp as South Africans who’ve played in finals of major franchise T20 tournaments. Van Niekerk and Kapp were part of the Sydney Sixers side that won the WBBL in 2017, while in 2018, Lee was named player of the final after scoring a century to help the Surrey Stars annex the Super League T20 tournament in England.
Moreeng wants to see those kinds of performances transferred to the international stage. South Africa now go into ICC tournaments as legitimate contenders, which will again be the case for the two major events on the horizon – the 50-over World Cup which will take place in New Zealand in 2022 and the T20 World Cup, that South Africa will host in 2023.
The short term priority is the 50-over event. Moreeng hopes to play 26 ODIs before that tournament. It is understood the side will face West Indies, Pakistan and India, while a tour to England next year has already been confirmed by the ECB.
Because of the demands of the ‘bio-secure bubbles’, Moreeng will need around 24 players in the squads for
various series. He and CSA’s national selection convener Victor Mpitsang are also aware of looking to the future, so developing players beyond the current group is also at the back of their minds.
“If we have to pick 24 players we can compete, it’s from player 25 onwards that we have a problem. The gap is way too big,” said Moreeng. He explained that putting together high performance tours to countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka may be an option, but that it is also crucial that players learn from the country’s stars when playing alongside them in tournaments like the domestic Women’s Super League.
A draft for that T20 tournament, that will take place over three days starting on December 14, took place last week. “We need to start sustaining what we’ve achieved so far with the current crop of players, so the youngsters need to start pushing the players who are established now.
“Hopefully we can get more players in the WBBL, the England tournament, IPL … it will be good for us to have a similar tournament.
“You look at the countries that have played in finals recently, England, Australia, India … these countries have the leagues … if we can get that kind of competition going here, with our experienced players around our youngsters, that will be a big step in the right direction.”
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