Proteas women back CSA to do right thing with coach

Hilton Moreeng has completed his second term as national women’s coach with his reputation intact but whether he continues in
charge of the Proteas or not will depend on how new director of cricket Graeme Smith sees the long-term future of the team.

And captain Dane van Niekerk said on Thursday that she has full faith in Smith’s judgement, even if she may not entirely agree with
his viewpoint that the women’s game requires specialist input.

Moreeng, who first became South African coach in December 2012, has led the team to the semi-finals of both the Twenty20 and 50-over World Cups, in both cases losing narrowly to the eventual champions, Australia and England respectively.

They have also already automatically qualified for the next 50-over World Cup in New Zealand early next year after the points from their postponed series with Australia were shared.

The post of national women’s coach has been advertised and Smith sees it as being “different to the men’s game so we need to improve the pipeline to the national side as we grow, getting more players who have played for that national team”.

Moreeng, 42, is believed to have reapplied for the post.

Van Niekerk said in a teleconference that she did not believe in treating the men’s and women’s games differently.

“Graeme came to Australia to meet with me and Mignon du Preez during the ICC World T20, to see where the team was at and where we wanted to go.

“He’s certainly passionate about the game and we are excited to work with him.

“It’s more CSA’s [Cricket SA’s] job to decide on the coach and we will respect their decision, either to keep Hilton or to make a change. Our relationship with CSA is good enough that we can talk about anything.

“But I believe cricket is cricket, the principles stay the same, although in the women’s team you have to deal with different personalities and hormones, of course, while the men tend to be more cool, calm and collected.

“But I’m a big believer that looking at the men’s and women’s games differently is not the way to go forward. I would like to change
that stigma because we train just as hard,” Van Niekerk said.

The coronavirus pandemic not only caused the series with Australia to be called off but it is playing havoc with South Africa’s planning leading into the World Cup starting on 6 February.

A tour of the West Indies scheduled for the end of May is almost certainly not going to go ahead, while the tour to England in August/September is also under threat.

“Hopefully we get back on the park sooner rather than later and the next World Cup is very important for us and our sole focus at the moment.

“We have unbelievable talent and I wouldn’t be captain if I didn’t believe we could win a World Cup. We’ve been very close twice and we just need to stay patient,” Van Niekerk said.

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