Eastern Storm ladies Coach Adele van Eck is optimistic her team will open its 2022/23 CSA women’s provincial league season on a positive note.
Van Eck’s charges open their account against KZN-Inland in a one-day cup match on October 1 and a T20 cup fixture on October 2 at Willowmoore Park.
“We are going to play good cricket. We’ll try to master the basics because I believe if we do that the result will take care of itself.
“We’ve got certain KPIs in the team we want to reach. If we reach them, we’ll be happy, regardless of what happens,” she said.
The team played several warm-up games in the build-up to this match. Despite all matches ending in narrow losses, Van Eck said she was happy with their preparations.
“The girls have been working hard. We didn’t have a good campaign last season. We wanted to start and refocus this season. We had a nice trial to get the squad together and since then, we’ve been training well.”
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The Storm campaigned in the women’s top six leagues last season but was relegated at the end of the season after losing all their fixtures to finish bottom of the log.
“We were a broken team last season. We were down in the dumps. It was the first time we qualified for the top six. We didn’t know what to expect, but now we do.
“Fortunately in the women’s structure, if you win the league this season, you automatically go back up. All we need is to perform. We have a full 50-over fixture list. If we win all four games, we qualify for the promotion game. We win, we are back in the top six competing against the country’s best.”
Armed with a new squad with an average age of 22, Van Eck commented that they’ve put all that behind them and are now focused on building a competitive team.
“We decided we want to focus on our younger talent and start building them throughout the season to eventually get back to the top six.
“The new blood in the team is pushing the senior players hard because they see something is coming through. It’s been really good. We have a few close build-up matches and Gauteng and the South Africa U19 women’s Highveld players. Although we lost all of them, it was good for the girls to see that type of quality,” she said.
Both matches are on the Willowmoore Park main field and are scheduled to start at 10:00
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