Sharne Mayers: “The World Cup is the Ultimate Dream”

Sharne Mayers is one of the most experienced players in the Zimbabwe Women’s Cricket team. Although her official international record suggests she has only played 3 ODIs and 16 T20Is, the right-hand batter, has in fact, been around the setup since the mid-2000s, making her first appearance for the Lady Chevrons in 2006. Since then, she has transformed herself from a bowling allrounder to an attacking opener, even captaining the side for a few years. Therefore, it should come as no surprise, that Mayers will be one of Zimbabwe’s key players going into the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2022 Qualifiers in Dubai beginning on September 18.

In preparation for the big tournament, Zimbabwe travelled to India for an 18-day tour during which they played as many as nine matches against local teams before heading over to South Africa where they faced the Emerging side in 5 T20s.

During her time in India, Mayers collected three scores over 50, including a belligerent 67-ball 101. In what she describes as “alien conditions” where she was tested by heat and some very skilled spinners, she picked up plenty of skills – both mental and technical – that she hopes will hold her (and the rest of the group) in good stead going into the qualifiers.

Grouped alongside favourites Thailand, hosts United Arab Emirates and Papua New Guinea, Zimbabwe will come up against plenty of spin – something they have so far struggled to deal with at international level. However, Mayers believes they are better prepared on this occasion having had the opportunity to learn and execute their newfound methods in actual matches.

Speaking with gsport Global contributor, Ananya Upendran, Mayers talked about her time in India, the technical tweaks she’s made, the influence of coach Gary Brent and the dream of qualifying for a “home” World Cup.

What have you made of your trip to India?
It’s been the hardest and the best trip I have ever been on. Everybody I have ever spoken to that’s come to India has said it’s one of the best places to tour – the people, the vibe, the experience – and I agree 100 per cent. But it has been the hardest too… Conditions have been very different to what I am used to: the wickets, the players, the spin. You’re constantly challenged, you’re constantly having to rethink your game and your plans. You must have Plan A, Plan B and Plan C if you want to be successful in India, and you have to be able to adapt. So, for me like I said, it’s been the hardest and the best. That’s honestly the only way I can describe. (Laughs)

What are the major lessons you’re taking away from here?

You want to assess conditions and adapt as quickly as possible. So, as an opening batter, that starts with communication – asking Mary (Musonda) about the pitch and what we can expect, and then quickly coming up with a plan for it. So, do your homework, have plan A, Plan B, Plan C and make sure that you are working as hard on Plan C as you are on Plan A, because if you don’t adapt, you will be found out very quickly and that’s something that we saw from our first day here. After the first game, things just got harder and harder and harder. You can’t say that there was an easy game. So, if you are going to tour in conditions like this, you have to assess and adapt as quickly as possible.

How well do you think you did that as the tour progressed?

I’d like to think I did pretty well! (Laughs) I came here with no expectations. Spin has never been a strong suit of mine, I have always liked pace on the ball, so I came here with no expectations. I came here with the intention to learn. I said even if I come out with 10 ducks, I don’t mind doing that if every single game or training session I am learning. Having the freedom to experiment while still playing to the team plan was massive. That freed me up and I guess you can say it worked.

You faced plenty of spin through this tour and performed quite admirably considering it’s something you have previously struggled against. What improvements do you think you’ve made on a technical or tactical front?

So, when I am playing a seamer, or somebody who bowls quick, I don’t move my feet much, it’s largely my hands that swing through the ball, but that’s not the best way to play spin in these conditions, is it? Now I think I move my feet a lot more. I mean, coaches often say that the moment you start moving your feet to a spinner it just makes everything so much easier.

Other than that, I am able to almost anticipate what the bowler is trying to do. I am watching the ball from the hand a lot better. Even if I am not on strike, I am watching what the bowler is doing, so that I know, okay if they make this change or adjust the field this way, this is what they are going to do; this is how they want to bowl to me compared to my partner. And also then realise what my partner’s strengths are and you know coming up with a plan quickly. That for me has almost been a gamechanger. Before this tour my strike rate against spin was maybe 60 odd and now it’s a lot higher. (She struck at 122 during the T20s in India).

Overall, I think I am now more confident against spinners. I don’t think it’s at the same level as me playing against a seamer, but I do think that I am on the right track to getting there.

One of the training days I saw you working on using your wrists to manipulate the ball into different parts of the field. How different was that type of training to what you are used to?

Massive! Funnily enough straight after that session I spoke to my coaches back home and I said, I have been encouraged to play with my wrists and it works! But it’s how you play with your wrists… That was the biggest difference. Because, as you said, we go home and it’s all about strong wrists, whereas here it’s about actually using your wrists, going with the ball, getting it into areas that you want to score runs.  I have never ever thought about it like that, but it makes sense because we also don’t see a lot of Indian batters, male or female, sweep the ball too much. They run down and play with their wrists. So, for me, this makes more sense. I’m not a big sweeper of the ball either, and I do have strong wrists, so I’d rather utilise that than the sweep shot.

You played some cricket in New Zealand – what was that experience like? Is that where you aced your game against pace?

It was hard, but funnily enough that’s not quite where my strength against seam comes from. At that stage, I was batting at No.6 and I was bowling second change. I was bowling off spin and I cleaned up in New Zealand. I loved it! I was bowling and taking wickets and was developing into a proper allrounder. Then I came back to Zimbabwe and I was very frustrated with how things were going. I almost turned my back on cricket and you know, it was just ‘I don’t know where my life is going right now’, but I was just very frustrated with how things were being run. At that point I had a choice: do I stay upset and sulk about it or do I want to be proactive, make a change, and take my game to the next level? To be clear, I still wanted to play international cricket. I came back and I said, okay, I am going to play men’s club cricket and keep working on my game. So, through that period, all I did was I bat and I played hockey and I absolutely loved it. It was just a (period of) single-minded focus.

Around that time, a coach that really helped me was Vusi Sibanda – we worked a lot on my technique and created a good foundation. I was a finisher, so I was really good at playing on the leg side, and he was like no, we are going to expand your game, and we just worked on it. He would get brand new balls and he would be like, ‘I am going to hit you right in the ribs. How are you going to play me?’ We worked on it day in, day out. Before a team session I had a session with him. After the team session, I had a session with him. He was quickly able to identify the areas of my game I needed to address and we just went from there. Working with Vusi was a real game-changer against pace for me. I was able to draw so much from conversations with him and he would just say, ‘we are going to work hard and it’s not going to be easy, you are going to be uncomfortable, you are going to get hurt, but you are not going to die.’ So, he really helped me with my confidence and how to play the faster, swinging ball. Then, I went to SA and the ball comes to the bat nicely and you are playing players that are a lot quicker, a lot more skilful than back home… Then it literally just went from there – I made my way up the order and am opening the batting now!

Do you still work with him?

Yes, I do. I chat to him quite often. When I was in South Africa, I would send game footage to him and he would talk to me about my technical aspects, my mental approach to the game. He was also super helpful through that Covid period – just helping me find ways to cope and places to practice. That was the longest period I had been away from home and hadn’t seen my family. But he was there, in a similar situation, brainstorming ideas and just coming up with solutions to the question ‘how are we going to cope so that life is sorted and you can play top level cricket?’ We still chat, maybe not as often as before, but I know I can always have a word with him.

Speaking of former male cricketers, Gary Brent was recently appointed head coach of the team. What has he brought to the group?

What I do love about Gary right now is he is very straightforward. He tells you exactly where you stand and what the team’s expectations are of you based on your skillset. So, we have very clearly defined roles. He also encourages a lot of ownership, so, if you are not performing or there’s something lacking within your game, he’ll have a conversation with you, but then it’s up to you to find the time to work on it. He says, ‘we are here to assist and facilitate and make sure that you work on it, but we aren’t going to say (come at) this time’. So, he’s made us more accountable for our games and also made sure that we know what our roles are. If there is clarity, you can’t be distracted by much. There is no confusion; you are going in there knowing exactly what you need to do.

How much do you think this tour has helped the team further define or re-define those roles according to conditions, considering this is what you are expected to face in Dubai?

(Laughs) That’s an interesting one! I’m not sure how much it’s helped in terms of role definition, but I think us as players have been able to figure out how we want to or can play and can be most effective in these conditions within the framework of our roles, if that makes sense? It goes back to what I said earlier about adapting and assessing conditions quickly. We’ve understood what works for us and what we can work on or how we can improve – in both the short-term and long-term – to be consistent in these conditions. I know for a fact that I am not the most technically gifted cricketer and there’s a lot of things [that I do] that look very strange, but what I do is effective and it works and that’s what is expected from me. I make use of the powerplay, I attack seam, now I know how I can better attack spin, but that was my role from the start. This tour has helped me understand my plans better.

There seems to be a real buzz – a quiet confidence – around this group. It almost feels like you all genuinely believe this is your best chance to qualify for a World Cup. What’s different about this team from the teams that previously played in qualifying tournaments?

I think everybody is clear in what they need to do. Everybody has had conversations with the head coach, bowling coach, fielding coach and also discussed their batting – so everybody is clear in the role they have to play and everybody is clear on the team game plan. So, just in terms of where we want to go and how we need to get there, everybody knows that it’s a case of we won’t get to the World Cup if we block the ball. And if you’re going to bomb out, bomb out swinging, bomb out trying to do the right thing and go to the next level. So that’s been a game changer for me.

I think a bigger part of that is now everybody sees where cricket is going. We have a lot more players going on overseas contracts playing in different leagues – Mary-Anne just came back from Fairbreak, we have two others (Josephine Nkomo and Modester Mupachikwa) playing league cricket overseas – so, they are seeing there are possibilities within cricket. I know in South Africa a lot of the universities want female cricketers and they are willing to give scholarships. So now there’s a realisation that ‘okay, cricket could give you your degree!’. So, you know, people are seeing that there’s so much more that cricket can offer you and you just need to put in a little more effort, which in my opinion is minimal for the gain you could get. But to get back to your question, I think we know we can do it, especially because we’ve played the teams that we are going to be facing. When we’ve played them (qualifying tournaments) before, it’s been almost lacklustre. Mentally, I don’t think we were there. I know there was one qualifier where we were playing against India and then South Africa (in 2017), and even before the game it was like ‘Oof, we are playing against India!’, but after the game it was almost like, ‘Oh, hold up, that wasn’t too bad.’ It was almost like…

… like you were building them up in your head?

Yeah! And then you actually meet them and realise, oh actually, we’re not that far off. So, it’s just belief in what we can do and not comparing ourselves to anybody else. We are no longer looking at teams as being better than us; instead, we’re seeing them as cricketers – they’re just like us. We’ve done the work, we have plans as well and we now trust our abilities. So, that has been something that within our team we are just striving for… We are all cricketers at the end of the day and cricket is cricket, whether it is under-9 or whether it is international cricket. You have to turn up on the day and execute. Reputation counts for little.

What would it mean to the group to qualify for the World Cup?

Oh, that would be massive! I mean, it’s what we have been dreaming about – to play in a World Cup being hosted in Africa would be huge for us as a team and cricket in Zimbabwe in general. For me, it would also be like a home World Cup since I work in South Africa. Like you said, I think there is a confidence in this team and a real belief that will hold us in good stead this time, but having said that, we know it’s going to be hard work. We are going to have to play some really good cricket through the qualifiers to get into that final. There are going to be some good teams there with quality players, but we’ve got some great matches lined up ahead of the tournament, so preparation-wise we would have done all the work. So, that’s again massive for us – just knowing we are ready. But yeah, the World Cup is the ultimate dream – it’s what has been driving us every day.