Proteas women’s team’s World Cup effort ‘massive’ for us, says Bavuma

The Proteas are set to take inspiration from the performance of the South African Women’s cricket team who recently made the final of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, when they take on the West Indies in a two-match Test series starting on Tuesday.

Playing in front of their home fans, the SA women made history by becoming the first South African senior team, men or women, to make it to the final of a World Cup in any format.

The superb performance of the SA women, particularly in their upset semifinal win over England, will provide the men with some inspiration going into their two Test series against the Caribbean visitors.

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“It was massive, not just for us but for the nation. All the guys were watching. As a team, we’re always looking for ways to draw inspiration and I hope there will be a lot more support for women’s cricket,” said Proteas captain Temba Bavuma about their women counterparts.

Looking to improve

Bavuma also spoke about the Proteas’ two most recent Test tours, to England and Australia, where they were soundly beaten on both occasions, and how they wanted to improve on those performances against the Windies.

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“England and Australia are tough places to tour and they separate the good guys from the really good guys,” explained Bavuma.

“We went to Australia and got a good beating. With that there were lessons that guys took individually from it. It was quite hard to have a team de-brief on it because the management who were there, some of those guys are not here now. From a personal point of view, I went back and looked at areas I could work on.

“Here within the Test team, guys would’ve dealt with the challenges that they faced. I also think that guys need to be kind to themselves and understand that Australia is another tough place to tour. That’s why people respect Australia for the country that they are.”