Focus on depth in pace stocks at South Africa women’s camp

The purpose of the one-day exercise, as a CSA statement said, was to take stock of the depth in pace bowling in the country while also trying to gauge the progress made by the next rung of women pacers that have been a part of the National Academy.

South Africa currently have an excellent pace-bowling attack at the national level. Shabnim Ismail, Marizanne Kapp and Ayabonga Khaka are at No.3, No.4 and No.8 in the MRF Tyres ICC Women’s ODI Player Rankings for bowlers.

Vincent Barnes, the CSA High-Performance Manager, was satisfied with what he saw at the camp.

“We want to ensure that we have given them (national players) the best opportunity and tools to prepare for the season ahead and for some of the young bowlers that are coming through the system, to make sure that they can step up into international cricket,” he said.

“It’s about preparing for matches and the intensity we want to see them play at. We’ve seen through the winter here at the academy, the intensity getting better and better and that’s what’s needed if you want to become an international cricketer. I’ve seen a massive improvement in the way that some of the girls have stepped up. Being here is a massive incentive for them to become national players.

“For some bowlers, it’s about working on technical aspects of their games and others it’s about working on the tactical and they also want to work on game situations.”

The South Africans had a disappointing time in England recently, and Ismail, who picked up a total of eight wickets in six limited-overs internationals on tour, felt the camp was a positive step.

“We worked a lot on the positives today,” she said. “In the last tour, the bowlers didn’t come to the party as much as we would have liked so we’ve gone back to basics and had a really good discussion on how to bounce back not just physically but mentally as well.”

While happy with the overall scenario, Barnes was worried about South Africa’s inability to bowl oppositions out more often.

“My concern at the moment is that for a team that has four bowlers in the top 11 of the ICC ODI bowlers’ rankings [Dane van Niekerk, the leg-spinner, is at No.11], we should be bowling teams out and doing a lot better as a bowling unit," he said. "We’ve got this really good bowling attack but we’re just not bowling as well as we should."

Whether any of the youngsters from the academy make the step up soon to join the Kapps and Khakas remains to be seen, but it was a good experience for them to rub shoulders with the best in the country.

“It’s always nice for the youngsters who are coming through the pipeline to come and see and hear what it’s like within the bowling set-up, within the South African camp,” said Ismail.

“For someone like Tumi (Sekhukhune, one of the academy pacers) to come in and hear the conversations that we have in the camp is an eye-opener for her and she’ll be able to hopefully take the learnings from here and use them in her own game going forward and also be aware of what to expect one day when she’s in the national set-up as well.”