Cape Town — Laura Wolvaardt is focusing purely on scoring more runs for the Proteas and not spending energy on where she is positioned in the batting order.
Wolvaardt has had a quiet Women’s T20 World Cup on home soil so far with an aggregate of 50 runs at the top of the order.
This is in complete contrast to the last T20 Women’s World Cup where she was in blistering form in Australia — although those runs were struck lower down where she performed the role of the team’s “finisher”.
The classy right-hander, though, is not too perturbed by the positional switch, and believes the runs will come regardless of when she walks to the crease.
“It's never nice not making runs, especially at a home tournament. It's supposed to be a very special time for me. So, to not be making runs is a bit frustrating,” Wolvaardt said.
“But I think at the end of the day, I feel I'm still hitting the ball pretty well in the nets. So, I just need to stay calm and trust that the runs will come when they need to.
“I feel both of them have their pros and cons to me. I'm really enjoying the opportunity to be at the top of the order. I don't think that's why I've not been scoring runs, because most of my dismissals have come after the powerplay. So yeah, I enjoy both of them. I'm just looking forward to hopefully having more opportunities at the top of the order and hopefully make the position mine going forward.”
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The Proteas certainly need their star batter to find form as the business end of the tournament approaches. The home team face a must-win final league game against Bangladesh on Tuesday at Newlands (7pm start) if they hope to progress to the semi-finals.
If they progress, the rest of the week could arguably be the most important few days in the history of South Africa’s women’s cricket with a potential home semi and final at Newlands beckoning.
“Obviously, it's a massive game. Probably one of the more important games of my career. Thanks for reminding me,” Wolvaardt said.
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“We just need to stay calm and do what we do well. And hopefully it'll go our way.
“I think as a home nation, you'll want to play in a semi-final. So obviously, tomorrow's a really big game, but we can't really think further than that just yet. We kind of still have a job to do tomorrow. So that's mostly what our focus is, is just on Bangladesh and what we need to do to beat them.”
IOL Sport