20:01
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the third match of England’s spluttering World Cup campaign. After two defeats to Australia and West Indies, Heather Knight’s team will be on the brink of an embarrassing early exit if they do not prosper over Sune Luus’ South Africa.
A competitive showing in a last over loss to Australia in their first game was somewhat overshadowed by a sloppy performance in their second against the Windies in which they dropped five catches and gave away 23 freebie runs in wides, eventually going down by just seven runs. It felt like more.
England will need to be a lot sharper against the Proteas, who are currently ranked the second best side in the world and have already chalked up two wins from two against Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Kate Cross was on the media rounds in the build up to the game and struck a hopeful tone:
“We’re losing by small margins, but a lot of it is our own doing… the amount of wides we’ve been bowling has cost us and the fielding has not been the standard we set for ourselves, so that is something we have to look at and hopefully improve on.”
The seamer was bullish too, “If we can get that win on the board, there is still a great chance we can qualify and go on to win the World Cup. We’ve not written that off yet.”
Knight’s side currently have their paws on the World Cup trophy and they won’t want to relinquish it without putting up a fight. They’ll need to conjure up some of the magic that they harnessed so memorably during that frenzied afternoon at Lord’s almost five years ago. Heck, a re-watch of that epic game against India should be enough to get the juices flowing before we get going here in a little while.
Today’s game is a day/nighter and gets underway in Mount Maunganui at 2pm which is a bleary eyed ONE AM here in blighty. I’ll be back shortly with news of the toss and the teams – can’t promise I won’t be in my dressing gown and slippers but let’s keep that between us? Thanks.
As ever, do get in touch on the email or that other thing if you are out there and tuning in, this OBO needs YOU!
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