The pressure is on Sri Lanka, says du Preez

South Africa women’s captain Mignon du Preez is hoping the expectation of being tournament hosts will weigh down Sri Lanka in Wednesday’s ICC Women’s World Twenty20 opener in Galle.

Rain has affected practice for all the eight teams during the build-up to the women’s event but fingers are crossed for better weather when the games begin.

South Africa has the honour of taking part in the first match, against Sri Lanka, with Du Preez happy to deflect much of the emphasis onto the opposition.    

“As much as we are under our own pressure to put in a good performance in this tournament, I would say we don’t have as much weight on our shoulders as Sri Lanka do as the hosting nation,” she said.

Although they haven’t been able to get outside for a couple of days, Du Preez is happy with the preparations that included T20 and one-day series in Bangladesh and a warm-up fixture against England last weekend in Colombo.  

“Thankfully we played a practice match against England in Colombo and we have had a few days to get acclimatized to the Sri Lankan conditions after coming straight from a competitive tour of Bangladesh,” Du Preez explained. “That tour assisted us in that we were in the sub-continent for two full weeks before arriving here (Galle) and this gives us a slight edge against those teams who have not. We came from a South African winter to a hot and humid climate which definitely needs a few days to get used to.”

The South Africa batsman will not have enjoyed her team’s 121-run capitulation to England on Saturday but is hoping lessons will have been learnt by the time matters get even more serious.  

“Obviously we wanted to do a lot better against England. We had one of those days where things got a little bit hectic a little too soon but I believe we have addressed this and will have a better opening match against the hosts,” Du Preez concluded.