Wolvaardt holds thumbs World Cup will go ahead
• ‘It has been our main focus for three and a bit years’
Laura Wolvaardt said the Proteas have put in a lot of work over the past couple of years in preparation for the Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand in January 2021.
She hopes the tournament will not be scuppered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Cricket SA suspended all domestic activity for three months in March as the Covid19 disease started to ravage the global cricket calendar.
The reigning SA women ’ s cricketer of the year said she missed the smell of the grass and is excited to have returned to training in June after cricket was able to resume activities under strict regulations.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s World Cup “has been our main focus for the past three and a bit years and everything has been building to that. That is the really big one on our calendar‚” said the 21-year-old‚ who has been part of the Proteas squad for the past four years.
“I think as soon as we can start playing and getting back together again‚ it would be full steam towards [preparing for] that tournament‚” said the hardhitting right-hander from Milnerton in Cape Town.
The men’s Twenty20 World Cup‚ which is supposed to be held in October and November in Australia‚ faces the threat of postponement when the ICC chiefs meet on Friday.
Cricket chiefs on the powerful India cricket board are reportedly hoping that the ICC pushes the Twenty20 World Cup forward to open up a window for the staging of the multibillion-dollar Indian Premier League (IPL)‚ which was indefinitely postponed from its traditional slot in March.
Indian media reported that the influential Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has already zeroed in on the end of
September-early November window for the IPL‚ which could see the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup postponed.
“I guess no-one knows what is going to happen. So anything could happen at this stage but we will plan as if it is still going ahead,” Wolvaardt said.
“Nothing is going to change in our minds. We are still fully convinced it is going to happen and going to prepare for it as if it is happening in January.”
Wolvaardt said she was also looking forward to having another crack in the 2022 Twenty20 World Cup on home soil and the Commonwealth Games to be hosted in England‚ later in the same year.
“It will be great to regroup again and discuss all the plans and continue with our ODI plans for the World Cup in January.”
The SA women’s team was scheduled to play an ODI series against the West Indies in May but the five-match contest in Jamaica and Trinidad was cancelled.
“It is a shame to see the series cancelled but I guess it has given me some time at home to work on specifics from a fitness point of view.”
IT WILL BE GREAT TO REGROUP AGAIN AND CONTINUE WITH OUR ODI PLANS FOR THE WORLD CUP IN JANUARY