Proteas women aiming to win ‘small moments’ against Sri Lanka

After falling in a 15-run defeat in their opening match earlier this week, all-rounder Annerie Dercksen says the Proteas will attempt to be more clinical in all areas of their game in their second fixture of the women’s ODI tri-series tournament in Colombo on Friday (6.30am start).

Though they were in the contest until the death, a lower-order collapse left the SA team floundering as they lost to table toppers India in hot conditions on Monday.

While the national team had not played a match since a home tour against England in December, Dercksen said they weren’t using that as an excuse.

Eager to pick up some crucial points, she believed there were multiple areas where they could improve in their second fixture against hosts Sri Lanka.

“I felt we were in control for the majority of that game and we probably lost it in small moments that swung the game away from us,” said Dercksen, who took 1/40 with the ball and made a quickfire 30 runs with the bat against India.

“But we are professional and we should be able to adapt, even after a period of not playing together for a while.

“Fortunately we’ve got a couple of games left and we’ll definitely be looking to rectify that.”

Learning experience

While opening batters Tazmin Brits (who made 109 runs despite having to leave the field for a period due to cramps) and Laura Wolvaardt (43) shared 140 runs for the first wicket, the Proteas fell short in their chase against India after losing their last five wickets for just 11 runs in the space of 13 deliveries.

They were also less clinicial than they would have liked with the ball and were sloppy in the field, spilling catches.

Dercksen, however, reiterated that this was a crucial learning curve for the players (as captain Wolvaardt had said last week) in the build-up to the Women’s Cricket World Cup in India later this year, which was expected to be played in similar conditions.

“This is a great learning experience leading up to the World Cup and we spoke yesterday about being better in the small moments,” Dercksen said.

“It was probably our responsibility in the end to get the team over the line after the start we had, so we really took a lot of learnings and experience from it.”