Photo Credit: ICC
South Africa vice-captain Chloe Tryon said her side will take nothing for granted when they come up against Pakistan in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 in Tauranga.
Pakistan are the lowest-ranked side in the tournament and have lost their opening two games against India and Australia.
The Proteas opened their campaign with a 32-run win against Bangladesh but were not at their best in Dunedin and Tryon is hoping for an improved performance on Friday.
She said: “We’ve played enough cricket against them to know what we’re up against. They’re a really good squad.
“We don’t want to take anything for granted, so we just have to make sure that we’re playing our best cricket tomorrow and make sure that if we tick our boxes we can end up on top.”
Tryon stepped up to the vice-captaincy after Sune Luus replaced the injured Dane van Niekerk as skipper on the eve of the tournament.
That is not her only change in role, with the all-rounder now under more pressure to deliver with both bat and ball – but it’s a responsibility she’s relishing.
“It has been a bit of a struggle in the last couple of years,” she admitted. “A little bit up and down with injuries.
“A lot of frustration on my side regarding that, but I just made sure once I recovered from my last injury, I just worked really hard, I worked on my skill a lot.
“I knew the World Cup was around the corner, so I sacrificed a lot of time back home just making sure I was doing the right things, and I feel like it’s really been paying off.
“I’ve worked really hard building up to this World Cup so I’m hoping to score more runs and take more wickets, but so far I’m happy with how I’m going.”
The 28-year-old will also hope to add to the high run-scoring the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 has already seen.
She said: “I’ve been really looking forward to this for a long time and to see games going down to the wire, it is really good.
“You’re playing the best in the world and you can see everyone really wants to win this World Cup and I’m excited to see the rest of it.
“I expect big scores and that’s what’s happening at the moment which is great. It’s just girls showcasing their skills and you can see the hard work they put behind it – so it’s nice to see that this one has been going good so far.”
Pakistan lost 3-0 when the two sides met in Durban in 2021 and have seen an unsettled top order so far, with Javeria Khan replaced by Nahida Khan against Australia due to injury.
Head coach David Hemp admitted they are still searching for the answer.
He said: “In terms of the combination at the top, unfortunately, we found ourselves in certain situations where we have tried several players, we’ve got players that are improving their games.
“But in terms of actually cementing a spot we’ve come up with various combinations at the moment, we still have to look at those combinations.
“Some of those players, one or two have experience, one or two are learning the game and again, like anything that takes a bit of time for players to get the confidence to build into a role.
“That’s where we are at the moment. It’s certainly been a little bit more reliant on four, five and six and seven, which have played consistently well over the last eight to nine months.
“But the opening roles and the top three roles have certainly been an area where we’ve given people an opportunity and we are trying to find the right combinations of those players.”
