After getting the tournament off to a disappointing start, Proteas captain Laura Wolvaardt said she was pleased with the way her team had shaken that off, bouncing back to win four games in a row.
The SA side were thumped by England in their opening match, but they recovered well, going on to beat New Zealand, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
In their latest fixture, which was reduced to 20 overs a side due to a lengthy rain delay, the South Africans coasted to a 10-wicket victory over World Cup co-hosts Sri Lanka with more than five overs to spare in Colombo on Friday.
In the process, they put one foot in the semifinals as they climbed to second place in the first-round standings with eight points, just one point behind log leaders Australia.
“After that game (against England) we just kind of said to ourselves that we know we’re a lot better than that, and we just wanted to forget about it as quickly as we could,” said Wolvaardt, who was named Player of the Match against Sri Lanka after top-scoring with an unbeaten 60 runs.
“I think in these tournaments you have to have a short memory with things like that. You have to take your learnings, maybe think about what you could have done over the next couple of days, and then totally switch off from it and focus on the next game, which I think we’ve done really well in this competition so far.”
All-round team effort
Wolvaardt was delighted with the national team’s all-round effort in the round-robin league stage.
At separate points in the tournament, the top-order and middle-order batters had stood up. She also felt the bowling attack had been “amazing” and the side’s fielding had been “pretty decent”.
But she believed they could still improve, which boded well for the Proteas for the remainder of the tournament.
“The whole team has contributed at different parts in this tournament, which has been awesome,” Wolvaardt said.
“We definitely haven’t relied on one or two people… so it’s nice to see all those pieces of the puzzle coming together.
“I think we’re still searching for that perfect game as a team, where the top-order fires and the middle-order fires, which is exciting because we’re still winning games even though certain things aren’t perfect.”
South Africa will face Pakistan in their penultimate match of the opening round in Colombo on Tuesday.
However, they could qualify for the semifinals before that. If Pakistan beat New Zealand in their match in Colombo on Saturday, the Proteas will progress to the playoffs.
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