The SA women’s cricket team head into the third and final One-Day International on Thursday against New Zealand in Hamilton, intent on keeping the pressure on the hosts.
SA have the chance to grab an unprecedented 3-0 one-day series whitewash in the final match which would further underline their achievement in winning an ODI series outside of South Africa for the third time.
Coach Hilton Moreeng has urged his troops to continue with their inspiring performances and go for a clean sweep instead of taking the foot off the paddle.
“Two-nil is a great result for us but 3-0 will be even better, especially after the tour we had in India late last year,” Moreeng said.
“We know what it is like to be on the receiving end so it would be great to finish off the job with another quality performance and not take it lightly because we have won the series. Our focus as a team is that we want to finish the ODI series well before we turn our focus to the T20s and don’t want to get hammered in the last game and people consider [the first two games] a fluke. We want to put in a good performance and win 3-0.”
Despite the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup taking place in Australia next month, the Proteas mentor continued to focus more on ODI cricket behind the scenes as the importance of automatic qualification was the bigger picture.
“The focus on ODI cricket was the priority coming here to New Zealand and we have had our eye on the bigger picture which is automatic qualification. We are not proud of our ODI performances from last year, hence we planned adequately for these ODI matches here and it is pleasing as a coaching staff to see the team execute our plans the way they have,” Moreeng said.
The team has taken a lot out of the ODI matches and you can see the belief is there. It gives us clarity where we are going as a team and what our combinations will look like going forward.”
In partnership with ANA and Sports Leo
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