Women Proteas seek whitewash

Durban – The Proteas will be bidding for a series sweep when they face Pakistan in the final one-day international (ODI) at Kingsmead today.

The hosts won the first two matches by three and 13 runs respectively but are seeking a more clinical display in match three, especially after a less than impressive performance in the field during Black Day where they spurned several catches.

In fact, their failure to hold on to catches almost came back to haunt them in that game and opener Lizelle Lee says they are determined to do much better than what the results have been showing.

“I think the team is in a good space, but to be honest we haven’t done what we set out to do,” she mentioned.

“I think there is still a lot of hard work that needs to be done.

“Pakistan has given us some tough times on the weekend, and we expect them to come back really hard in this last game, especially because they will have something to prove and there’s no way we can sit back and expect that things are just going to happen for us.

“We’re going to have to work hard and make sure we get those basics right which we had set out to do in the beginning of the tour,” she added

South Africa are also bidding to extend their winning streak to six matches in a row after they beat New Zealand 3-0 in their last ODI series prior to the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since then they have had a number of their tours cancelled, but Lee says that that sloppiness during the first two games should not be blamed on the 11-month hiatus.

“We’ve been out for 11 months but that’s no excuse for not being good in the field or being unable to execute some skill sets,” she said. “At the end of the day we still had a lot of time to train and prepare.

“So there’s no excuses for the things that we did. Hopefully we can try and set that right in the next game.

The match in Durban begins at 10am and will be broadcast live on SuperSport and on Radio 2000. –