Proteas Women’s coach Mandla Mashimbyi has praised the team despite their defeat to England in the ICC T20 World Cup semi-final at The Oval in London.
The hosts defeated the Proteas by 40 runs and will now face Australia in the final at Lord’s on Sunday.
England, who batted first, set a score of 169/5, and the Proteas could only manage 129/8 in front of a 21,000-strong crowd.
Despite the defeat, Mashimbyi said the team had learned valuable lessons.
“I think if you get to the semi-finals, you must have done something right, and I think we did do something right.
“Maybe not in the best way in terms of how we wanted to do it, but at the end of the day, you want to get World Cup wins, and we did get that.
“But I think today you have to give credit to England. I think they were really good; they’re incredible. And to be fair, two of the best teams in the tournament are in the final,” Mashimbyi said during a post-match interview.
Proteas captain Laura Wolvaardt was dismissed for 17 runs, marking a collapse in the batting order, while Tazmin Brits tried to steady the innings and was dismissed after scoring 51 runs.
He also dismissed suggestions that changes to the batting line-up may have affected the team.
“No, we believe in every player we have in the batting line-up. They just need to play their role well, but I guess it didn’t work out for us this time around.
“But I don’t think it’s time for us to nit-pick in terms of that. I just don’t think we batted well today, so it’s as simple as that,” explained Mashimbyi.
The coach said the lessons learnt will now help the team prepare for future tournaments, including the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, USA.
“You just lose and you learn.
“We’ve learned a lot in this World Cup, and we’re going to make sure that we go back to the drawing board and put things in place that will make us even more dangerous, even better as a team.
“We know where our gaps are, and that’s the only thing we can do really,” the coach added.
