The Proteas Women and the White Ferns of New Zealand are geared for an epic ODI clash in Potchefstroom on Sunday, 24 September.
This match will take place on Heritage Day at 10:00 and promises to be a cracker of an encounter.
Both captains spoke confidently at a pre-match conference on Friday, 22 September and are looking forward to start the series with a win in Potch.
SA captain, Laura Wolvaardt, stated that the team are ready to perform in front of an expectant home crowd.
“We are very excited to be back. Hopefully we can get a similar vibe to what we had at the World Cup in South Africa earlier this year,” she added.
These ODI’s are very important regarding qualification to the upcoming World Cup.
“The captaincy has been alright so far. I am lucky that I have a lot of senior players around me. I am slowly getting used to it,” Captaincy has helped to take my mind off my batting and to think more about conditions and what we need to do as a team,” she stated.
“Home support is always amazing. It will be awesome to see a good crowd coming in on Sunday. The Potch crowd has always been good to us. For this series we are looking for more consistency in all three departments,” added Wolvaardt.
“New Zealand are a quality side, they have a lot of world class batters. It will be a tough series, but hopefully we can hit the ground running,” she stated.
“We had a really good warm-up game on Wednesday. It was an opportunity for a number of players to get in form and game time in the middle,” said NZ women’s captain, Sophie Devine.
The White Ferns, as this team is known, has the experience and quality of Devine, Suzie Bates, Lea Tahuhu and Amelia Kerr, but also has a promising group of youngsters in their squad.
“The great thing about this side is that there has been changes over the past 12 months after the previous World Cup. It’s important that we support each other in our various cricketing journeys,” stated Devine.
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