The Proteas women cricket team head into the third and final One-Day International against the White Ferns in Hamilton, high on confidence following their victories in the two ODIs played in Auckland.
The team has the chance to grab an unprecedented 3-0 one-day series whitewash in the final match tomorrow afternoon, which would further underline their achievement in winning an ODI series outside of South Africa for the third time.
Head coach Hilton Moreeng has urged the women 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. We 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 upcoming ICC Women’s T20 World Cup taking place in Australia next month, the Proteas’s 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 coaching staff, to see the team execute our plans the way they have,” said Moreeng.
“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.”
