Proteas captain Laura Wolvaardt eyes World Cup with renewed confidence

The Proteas Women will head into this year’s T20 World Cup with renewed confidence after they sealed a 4-1 T20 International series win against India.

It concluded on Freedom Day, 27 April, at Willowmoore Park in Benoni, where South Africa (SA) produced a string of commanding performances against a relatively underwhelming Indian side.

However, the series really belonged to Laura Wolvaardt. The Proteas captain finished the five matches as the leading run scorer with 330 runs, the most by any woman in a bilateral T20I series.

After a disappointing tour in New Zealand in March, when she managed only 97 runs in five innings, Wolvaardt returned to form emphatically on home soil, posting four 50-plus scores.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” she told Daily Maverick. “It was a really nice series for us as a group, especially after a tough one in New Zealand. [India] are world champs in the ODI format, so to beat them 4-1 is pretty big and sort of sets us up nicely momentum-wise heading into the World Cup.”

Asked what changed between New Zealand and India, Wolvaardt admitted she had been asking herself the same question.

“In New Zealand I had a tough tour and felt out of form, and everything felt difficult,” she said.

‘Found my flow back’

“Against India it just felt like everything clicked and I sort of found my flow back. I almost wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing. It was just sort of happening.”

Part of the shift may have come down to clarity about her role in the batting order. After batting at number three against New Zealand and Pakistan, Wolvaardt returned to the top of the order against India, alongside Suné Luus.

“I think before opening, I just had that mindset that I really needed to take the Powerplay on to get us off to good starts against India,” said Wolvaardt.

“In the first game I did that and it came off, and then just kind of kept going with it. So, I think it’s probably more a mindset shift than anything technical that I’ve changed.”

Wolvaardt continued to underline how vital she is to SA’s batting line-up.

According to ESPN Cricinfo, Wolvaardt currently sits just 240 runs short of the record for the most T20I runs in a calendar year and, with a World Cup and home summer still to come, she is well placed to rewrite the record books.

The skipper, who turned 27 the day before the Freedom Day series clincher, appears unfazed by the demands of leading the side while carrying the weight of expectation with bat in hand.

“I’ve always been used to having a lot on my plate. I think I’m just a pretty chill person in general,” she said. “I think that calm nature sort of carries on to the cricket field and helps me be pretty calm in my cricket as well.”

Middle-order concerns

Across the T20I series against Ireland, Pakistan, New Zealand and India this year, Wolvaardt has scored roughly 29% of SA’s runs. Against India alone, that rose to 40%.

For an opening batter, those numbers are naturally inflated, but it is still a significant number and may suggest that the team’s batting totals remain heavily tied to Wolvaardt’s output – perhaps too much so.

In SA’s only defeat of the series against India, Wolvaardt made 18 before being bowled out, and the innings lost shape soon after with only Luus and Tazmin Brits able to score 30 or more runs.

Then, in the fifth match, SA lost six wickets for 49 runs. In the series as a whole, only Luus registered another score of 50 or more, while Annerie Dercksen, the next-highest run scorer outside the top two, managed 65 runs in four innings.

Asked whether there was an overreliance on her in the team, Wolvaardt said: “I think maybe in the past … maybe. But I feel that we’ve developed quite a lot as a group. I feel that players like Dercksen have been in pretty good touch lately. She’s been scoring a lot of runs. Suné’s been batting pretty well.

“We’ve had one or two players that maybe aren’t in their usual good form with the bat, but that’s just cricket. I think it sort of ebbs and flows.”

Marked improvements

Overall, though, the Proteas Women have shown marked progress in their performance throughout this latest series, but there was still room for improvement, said Wolvaardt, especially in the fielding department.

“I think we were better in all three departments. I think our fielding improved a bit. It’s still not quite where it should be, we still dropped a few catches, but I think it was a lot better than in New Zealand.”

Dropped catches were a frustrating feature for both India and SA during this series as they put down 12 and 11, respectively.

The bowling, though still in need of minor adjustments, also improved significantly.

“I felt our death bowling was pretty good in this series,” said Wolvaardt. “It was probably something that was lacking a little bit in New Zealand, but I feel like we improved on that quite a lot and sort of adapted to different conditions too.

“We bowled a bit slower in Durban and then sort of nailed our yorkers a bit better in Joburg, so that was nice to see.”

World Cup prep

With no more competitive cricket lined up, SA now shift their attention fully to the T20 World Cup in England and Wales, to be held from 12 June to 5 July.

Wolvaardt, who has played five seasons in The Hundred cricket league in the UK, said the conditions should suit SA’s batting line-up.

“I think they’ll make the wickets pretty batting-friendly,” she said. “It’s a T20 World Cup, so I’m guessing they’ll want a bit of excitement and a lot of runs.

“I’ve played every year in The Hundred in August, so a bit later than June when we’re going to be there, but it’s always been pretty nice batting conditions.”

SA have reached three consecutive World Cup finals, but the title remains elusive. Wolvaardt is hoping that all changes this year.

“I think when the day comes, we just need to play a really good game of cricket,” she said. “We’ve seen now that we can beat anyone when we play good cricket. I mean, we lost to India in the recent final [the 50-over World Cup title decider in Navi Mumbai on 2 November 2025], and now we beat them 4-1, which is a bit frustrating.

“So we know we have that good game in us, and we can beat them. We just need it all to come together on the day. Hopefully we’re able to continue this momentum and just play some good cricket and combine a few good games in a row.”

SA open their campaign with a game against Australia in Manchester on 13 June. With India also in their group, theirs is expected to be the tournament’s toughest pool. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.