26 March - Christchurch - South Africa player Chloe Tryon pre-match press conference
Reporter: I just wanted to ask if you can talk to us about the importance of resisting the urge to take your foot off the accelerator, knowing that the team's already qualified for the semi-finals. How vital is that?
Chloe Tryon: Yeah, very vital, you obviously don't want to leave that up to the last group game. So I'm just thankful that despite the weather, we still got the point. It kind of just makes it a little bit easier going to the India game, with India a little more focused on specific skills and making sure we kind of tick off a couple boxes that we do have that we kind of have together really well. So it’s going to be really important that going into the India game, we kind of still put the foot on the accelerator a little bit. Make sure we get the momentum going to semifinal. And yeah, I think that we are on track for that.
Reporter: I want to know from you about conversations regarding the batting in the South African unit because Laura Wolvaardt has been getting the majority of runs and in the last match we saw Mignon getting some runs against the West Indies. So what have been the discussions in the batting group about the feelings of distancing?
Chloe: Look, we always want consistency in our batting line up, I think Laura has been really great upfront and supported a lot by Sune. It was just great that despite losing a couple of wickets in the West Indies game I felt – we’ll be early – Mignon put up her hand which is fantastic to see. We are at the business end of the tournament now, just to see this kind of performance is always fantastic. We know what a player she is and we knew she was about to bounce back sometime, so I'm just thankful that she's a little bit positive going into the India game and as a batting unit you always just want to make runs but it's just kind of being smart about it and kind of getting good partnerships. I think we haven't done that enough. And not much support to Laura but I think we've been taking off a couple of things so I'm excited to see how the India game goes going into the semifinal.
Reporter: Just wanted to ask regarding the Indian team, your opposition, any particular individuals that you are focusing on the opposition on tomorrows match?
Chloe: Look we’re playing a team like India they are all world class players. If you look up front, you got Smriti upfront and then you try and get her wicket and then you've got Mithali and Harman still around the corner. So I don't think we'll be focusing on specific people, I think we just looking at our game plans and how we want to kind of bowl to them and how we want to bat against them. And making sure that we're kind of ticking off those boxes. I think if we can kind of stick to our game plan, play the aggressive cricket that we want to and put up competitive totals and take wickets I think we can end up on top, but it's just about making sure that we’re ticking off those boxes.
Reporter: Obviously, you've played India last year, they were part of the run that South Africa is currently on winning five ODI series in a row - How important was that series win firstly in India to give you guys the confidence to go on the run that you guys have been on?
Chloe: Winning a series in India is not easy. It's really tough. So the way the team approached it was really good. I was not fortunate to be there, but to watch the game and see the grind that the girls had batting hard in tough conditions. So, it was always important to win a series like that and be able to face a world class team like India. So we're really good with that performance. And there's obviously stuff that we still want to work on as a team but to win like that in a place like India is always good and we know they’re a competitive team so we kind of have to be on top of our game to win this game and go into the semifinals.
Reporter: I just wanted to check with you what lessons that the team took from the previous match that you want to bring into this one, especially bowling wise, and then also ultimately on the batting side.
Chloe: If you look at the game against Australia, we're really happy with the way we started with the bat. I think Laura and Lizelle will really go up front. They kind of set a really good platform for everyone coming in and Sune batted - supported Wolvaardt really good up that order, but we still kind of feel like we’re losing a little bit of wickets in clusters a little bit, especially towards the end. So we kind of just make sure that we kind of are really building partnerships up in the middle period. We obviously never got to play a lot again in the West Indies game because there were only 10 overs, but we don't want to be losing clusters of wickets and I feel like that's kind of a little bit of a problem. So if we kind of just move past that and kind of build really good partnerships we can through that. I think with our bowling attack, it's always been fantastic. We've never had off days, but especially against Australia game I felt that we bowled in both sides of the wicket. So just trying to consistently hit good lines and lengths but - the bowling unit has been fantastic, not just at this World Cup but for many years. I don't think we want to look too much into that. I know they’ll definitely bounce back from that so just - it's a small things we need to tweak as a team.
Reporter: I just wanted to ask a bit about the batting, one of the trends through this tournament has been kind of how you’ve been pinned down against spin - the scoring rate somewhat slow down against spin, have you guys as a batting group, sat down and discussed how you want to approach playing spin especially against India where the primary threat is going to come from the spinners - Have you discussed how you want to approach that?
Chloe: You have to look at the team like India and their quality spinners, you always have to have those conversations.
I think at the end of the day with the way you want to approach spin is just making sure they're still playing positive cricket. We know we want to try to take the strike as much as we can and I felt that we haven't done enough of that and not just against India. If you look at other teams that we have played. We also struggled a little bit against Bangladesh and Pakistan and so it's just making sure that we’re still ticking that scoreboard over and not trying to get into two minds - I think if we still play really good positive cricket, we can play them a little bit better. But I think it's just making sure that we got really good plans against them and kind of back ourselves in that way and not kind of hold back a little bit. We are at the business end of the World Cup now and we don't want to be eating up too many dot balls. So I'm just going to make sure we kind of tick those off all the time and kind of just make sure that we - every single ball we're looking at scoring runs, and if not we’re backing up. So yeah, it's really important that we do that, especially going into the next game.
Reporter: I just wanted to ask about - there's been plenty of travel through this tournament and lots of talk about workloads and stuff like that. How is everyone coping physically, especially considering you've been playing back to back very recently and also just how was is Masabata Klass doing - will she be available tomorrow?
Chloe: Look, everyone's looking really good. Obviously coming from a series back home into this World Cup - we knew it'd be tough on the bodies. But I think recovery wise everyone’s been doing really well, Masabata Klass is doing good as well. Everyone is ready to go. Everyone is eager to play. It's going to be really tough. But yeah, the girls have been recovering really well, I just love that everyone is kind of taking care of their own spaces and knowing what they need to do as a recovery wise. But yeah, it's good. To see that everyone is ready to go.
Reporter: One of the batters in the Indian Top Five is of course the teenager Shafali Varma who sort of made a comeback into the starting 11 over the last couple of games. She hasn't quite fired the way in the explosive manner we know her to usually do, so is that a threat that South Africa are wary of that? Probably Shafali Verma could bring her A game against you all tomorrow.
Chloe: Yeah, well, she has to bounce back some way and you expect it in the next game - so I mean, she's a big threat, we've seen the kind of cricketer she is and how the success she can be. And once she gets going, she is kind of hard to stop. So we've had the discussions. She's bound to bounce back and you can see she's hungry to make runs. So I think as us - we just execute our plans against her and hopefully she doesn’t score any runs against us but yeah, it's going to be a really good challenge for us.
Reporter: And how much of a role do you see somebody like a Shabnim Ismail play in that matchup against Verma because we have seen Shabnim bowl a few vicious bounces against Verma every time she's tried to dominate the opposition attacks and Shabnim been pretty successful at that ploy.
Chloe: Yeah Shabnim has been fantastic for us. I love the fighting character that she is and she really just wants to take wickets and play really well all the time and it's a really good matchup. We know that she's going to want her wicket and Shafali is going to want to get runs against us so as long as Shabnim keeps her game plan and stays nice and calm, I'm sure that can happen, but that's going to be really good contest to see them go about it.
Reporter: So there have been reports of the BCCI mulling 6 teams Women's IPL next year. You have played in some of the best women's domestic tournaments the world over - so tell us what does that mean to players from the South African camp, are you interested? I mean, are you looking forward to something like the women’s IPL being launched and do you have any favorite teams that you hope some of the South Africans, including yourself, could be recruited?
Chloe: Look It's fantastic for women’s cricket - If you've looked at how successful the big bash has been and The 100 – just coming back into it. We want things like this to happen. You want leagues around the world. We want to showcase our skill and it's fantastic to see that there are six teams now so yeah, I think a lot of people, not just me are really eager to want to play there. We know how it is to play in India. We know how the crowds are. It's really good. So I'm really excited to see how that goes. I'll hopefully want to play, we’ll just see how that goes. But yeah it’s really exciting for women’s cricket as you can see this World Cup is getting a lot of attention and I'm just thankful that they are looking at it and putting women’s cricket on the platform. So it's really exciting.
Reporter: Just the last one for me, if you can – can you give us a bit of insight into how the mood is in the team cabin? How's the support been from back home to you guys?
Chloe: The mood is good. A little bit stressful after the last game, we wanted to play the cricket and obviously the weather won that game, but we took the point and we’re kind of just digesting that we went into the semifinals.
The mood is really good. It's pretty nice and calm. I don't think anyone's too overexcited at the moment. We still have a big game against India tomorrow. So everyone's calm. Kind of just making sure they still got the eye on the prize which is really good and the everything back home has just been still fantastic. All the support has been really good. The girls are loving it. We love it. We are expecting a lot of people, a lot of people are watching us back home especially with the hours. We know a lot of people must be suffering from jet lag which is unfortunate, but we’re just thankful that a lot of people are supporting us and we just want to make South Africa proud and wear this badge proudly. So yeah, we just want to make them really proud.
