South African captain Laura Wolvaardt became the third South African to score a T20 for Proteas women. The Capetonian scored 112 of 63 balls to lead South Africa to a 79-run victory over Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka won the toss and asked South Africa to bat first in Benoni, the east side of Gauteng. The crowds came out to support the ladies, which also included the parents of Sune Luus. The former Proteas captain, Sune, was playing her 115th T20 match for South Africa. As a result, she became the most capped South African captain.
Unfortunately for Sune, as much as she was looking good in the match, she was dismissed for 14 (9) via a runout. Luckily, she did not get injured when her knee got stuck on the ground while she was attempting to slide. The South African team management might have gotten a scare, but Sune just needed a bit of time off from the field before she went back to the field.
The South African innings started on fire with Tazmin Brits (15 of 9 balls) scoring two boundaries of the first over, but her stay was short-lived as she was dismissed by Fernando in the third over. South Africa were 1 for 25, when Marizanne Kapp joined Laura for their 116-run second wicket partnership.
Laura initially struggled to get going at the early parts of her innings. At some point, Laura was 15 runs of 16 balls. Until she struck 2 fours in the 8th over of Kavisha Dilhari. Since then, Laura would go on and get her 50 runs of 34 balls. She would get her 100 of 64 balls. Her strike rate in the course of the match moved from under 100 to 162.
Marizanne looked good with the bat as she was striking at 150 for her 60. Her partnership with Laura would not have been cut short had Sri Lanka taken their catches.
For the next match in Potchefstroom on Saturday, Sri Lanka will need to ensure they vastly improve on their fielding if they aim to win the series or at least one match in the series.
The rustiness of the Sri Lankan fielders can easily be attributed to the fact that the Island nation last played an international match about 6 months ago.
The Sri Lankan bowlers were not bad, and their spinners did cause the South African batters some problems. The South African captain struggled to move from first gear to second gear in the early parts of her batting innings. The Sri Lankan captain Chamari Athapaththu kept on changing her bowlers by giving them 1 over bowling spells. Only pace bowler Achini Kulasuriya bowled a two over spell, and that was in the powerplay.
Unfortunately for the visitors, the South Africans posted 198/5 in their 20 overs. The target was a big ask for Sri Lanka, and the wicket of their captain Chamari in the first over did not help matters. Marizanne continued her amazing bowling form with the wicket of Chamari in the first over.
Sri Lanka never looked like they would be reaching the target in their batting innings, but the visitors had shown enough of their batting potential to give the South African bowlers something to worry about for the rest of the tour.
Hasini Perera, Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, and Kavisha will be a good supporting cast for Chamari for the tour. The Sri Lankan batters showed intent to score runs, get boundaries, and run between the wickets, but the target was beyond them.
The South African bowlers kept on getting wickets regularly, Masabata Klaas got the second wicket in the fourth over when the Sri Lankan batters looked like they wanted to build something after the early dismissal of the captain.
Nadine de Klerk was responsible for breaking Sri Lankans’ most promising partnership of 44 from 31 balls, when Hasini (30 of 18 balls) was caught by Tazmin at long-on.
Sri Lankans top scorer for the match was Harshitha, who scored 38. She was dismissed by Annerie Dercksen in the 13th over with a short pitched ball that flicked her glove and ended up being caught by wicketkeeper Sinalo Jafta.
Tumi Sekhukhune (2/25) and Annerie (2/15) took 2 wickets each in the match. Nonkululeko Mlaba was the only Proteas bowler to go wicketless in the match. Even though Nonkululeko went wicketless, she did contribute with a run out of Achini.
The Sri Lankans could only manage to get 119 runs in 18.2 overs and ended losing the match by 79 runs.
The next match will be on Saturday, 30 March in Potchefstroom.
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