Learning Lessons from England

Playing a
team like England has given South Africa
the opportunity to assess exactly where the team is with regards to their
performance and skill levels, and its not all doom and gloom. Players like
Trisha Chetty and Alicia Smith have shown they have what it takes to play against
the best in the world.

Where South Africa
are currently struggling to compete is in social participation and High
Performance. England have 20 000 women and young girls involved in the game
while only 1000 play the game here in South Africa. There is no doubt more
needs to be done to develop the game here and unearth new stars around the
country.

But
President of SA Women’s Cricket, Kerri Laing, is still feeling confident and is
hoping for a top five position for South Africa when they participate in next
year’s ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in Australia in March 2009.

gsport spoke
to Kerri to find out more about the England
tour and how South Africa
plan to bounce back.

Kerri, the results don’t look good
on paper, but how did you rate the team’s performance?

Obviously
the results were disappointing and it is difficult to rate the performance but
I would say the team’s performance was ok for a team ranked 7th in the rankings
but the tour did show us how we need to play to be a top 4 team.

What were the key lessons learned?

The tour
was all about learning and gaining experience at international level. We need
to improve our fitness levels even more than we have already and we need to
learn how to score off good balls.

Who were South Africa’s stand-out
performers?

I think
Trisha Chetty had a good tour with the bat and behind the stumps, Alicia Smith
showed she can adapt to being a opening bat who gets the scoreboard ticking.

What can SA women’s cricket learn
from England?

The
structure in England
is so advanced they have something like 20 000 girls involved in girls and
women’s cricket, whilst we have about 1000, we need to get primary and high
schools playing.

What is being planned for the team
over the next few months?

We have
picked a squad of 29 players who will be getting fitness programmes and will be
tested every two weeks until November, thereafter we will be selecting a squad
to have a camp and we are trying for a tour at home in Jan or Feb. There will
be another camp before the world cup.

Do you agree that playing a leading
team like England
will assist toughening up the team?

Definitely,
we can see as players and administrators what and how much we need to do to
become a top side, the players see what level there individual skills need to
be improved as well.

After this tour, how do you rate South Africa’s
World Cup chances?

Since the
tour I would say I believe we can finish at worst 5th but a top four finish
cannot be written off if we use all the things we learnt in England and utilize them
effectively.

What is your message to members of
the team who may have been demoralized after the England tour?

I don’t
think anyone should be demoralized, we played a team who has some semi
professional and some professional players, who eat, sleep and drink cricket, they
don’t work a 9 to 5 job and then try find some time for cricket practice or
going to gym like most of our team do.

Which areas of the team’s game-plan
need to be worked on?

From the
feedback I received we need to learn how to switch from one game plan to
another if it is not working, we need get more game awareness ie knowing when
we have a team in trouble and knowing how to kill the game off.

What kind of development
initiatives would you like to see put in place?

We know
there are a lot of girls who play Bakers Cricket, we need to get a career path
in place where these girls are identified and followed through primary school
then high school then club cricket onto provincial and of course international
cricket. We desperately need to have a primary and high school league in place
and club cricket needs to become a lot more important than it is now where
provincial cricket is probably seen as more important.

What is your message to young girls
keen to play cricket for South
Africa?

Don’t let
the lack of interest in girls or women’s cricket get you down, keep on working
at your game and make contact with your local provincial office to find out
about the women’s game in your area. WE WILL BE NOTICED SOONER OR LATER.