The Proteas will target a win on Wednesday when they face Scotland in Dubai in a must-win ICC Women’s T20 World Cup game.

South Africa needs to beat Scotland on Wednesday and Bangladesh in their next game to keep the chances alive of reaching the semi-finals.

The 7-wicket defeat to England was a blow for South Africa, however, it was far from panic stations in the camp.

The allrounder Nadine de Klerk said the focus is on returning to winning ways on Wednesday, and if they play well the smaller things will sort themselves out.

“The main focus would obviously be to win the next two games,” said De Klerk. “I think we’re still pretty confident in our squad and I think yesterday we played some good cricket for most of the 40 overs that we were on the field for so net run rate in these short competitions is always really important.

“Our focus is obviously Wednesday’s game and how we go about our business. We want to win the game first and then try and focus on the net run-rate and those sorts of things.”

De Klerk, a seamer, added that the spinners have a big role to play as the trend thus far leans more in favour of the slower bowlers.

Nonkululeko Mlaba. Photo: Cricinfo

“I think that’s going to be kind of the theme of this World Cup. We’ve seen it with England and Australia. All the teams have kind of played three or four spinners and it’s been spin dominant.

“I mean, even a team like England bowling 16 overs of spin, which is not something you see that often. I think it’s going to be the same throughout the tournament. I think day or night games, it seems like spin is the way to go.

“And if not, then obviously Seamus taking pace off and with conditions being really slow, outfields being really slow. So, I definitely think our spinners are going to have a massive party to play in tomorrow’s game and again hopefully everybody can pull their weight and contribute to the side.”

Play in Dubai is scheduled to get underway at 12:00 on Wednesday.

OFM Sport/Morgan Piek mvh