South Africa face hosts England in the second T20 World Cup semi-final at the Oval on Thursday.
Australia and West Indies will contest the first semi-final at the same venue on Tuesday.
South Africa overcame a jittery performance with the bat to beat Bangladesh by four wickets at Lord’s on Sunday and then had to wait for Australia to beat India to be sure of their place in the last-four.
🇿🇦 PROTEAS WOMEN REACH FOURTH STRAIGHT T20 WORLD CUP SEMIFINAL — ENGLAND NEXT 🏏
South Africa are into the last four again.
The Proteas Women confirmed their place in the semifinals of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup on Sunday, holding their nerve in a tense chase against… pic.twitter.com/lYLsQhYdWo
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Despite winning four successive matches to reach the knockout stages, South Africa’s batting has failed to fire consistently, resulting in several tense run chases, including Sunday against Bangladesh.
Chasing a modest 118 for victory, South Africa lost Wolvaardt to the first ball of the innings, and had slipped to 59-3 at the halfway point.
In the end, South Africa squeaked home with four balls to spare to keep their tournament hopes alive.
Wolvaardt, however, believes the issue is more mental than technical.
“I think it’s probably a bit of a mindset thing,” she said.
“Sometimes we’ve batted a bit within ourselves instead of taking the positive option early enough. Against slower bowling on slow wickets, we probably need to be braver sooner and back our strengths.”
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The Proteas skipper admitted she has also found it difficult to produce her fluent best after arriving at the tournament in good touch.
“I was feeling really good coming into the tournament, so it’s frustrating that I haven’t quite found that rhythm,” she said.
“I think I’ve probably been trying to force it a bit instead of letting the ball come to me and trusting my natural game. Hopefully it only takes one or two shots to get that rhythm back.”
While the batting has spluttered, South Africa’s pace attack has flourished with the reunion of veteran duo Marizanne Kapp and Shabnim Ismail.
“They’ve been awesome for us,” said Wolvaardt.
“Kappi is world class and when the ball is moving around like that I like to use her early because she can bowl really well up front and get us way ahead of the game early.”
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“We have the likes of Shibnam now as well which gives us the option of maybe holding one of them back,” she said. “Shibi was excellent today as well.
“Kappi hits an area over and over and Shibi just brings that little extra pace to our attack that we’ve probably lacked.”
England enter Thursday’s clash in impressive form, but Wolvaardt is confident South Africa can upset the hosts.
In their most recent meeting, South Africa beat England by a mammoth 125 runs in the semi-final of the 50-over World Cup in India in late 2025.
That win was powered by a brilliant 169 by Wolvaardt’s 169 and a five-wicket haul from Kapp.
“England are playing really good cricket and have a batting line-up that’s in form,” Wolvaardt said.
“But if we play a really good game of cricket, we can beat anyone on our day,” she said. “We must make sure we produce a complete performance.”
Photo: Dan Istitene/Getty Images
