The Women's T20 World Cup 2024 still needs a proper fire-starter but it got a slow-burner in the first almost-nail-biter, which asked more questions of the last edition's losing finalists South Africa, than it did of the team they beat then, England.
That says as much about the development of South Africa as it does about the expectation on them. They have lost 20 of the 25 T20Is they've played against England but, as a team that have progressed steadily since professionalisation in 2014, South Africa are now supposed to push the big three - England, Australia, India. Their falling short will be a cause for careful critique, especially as their search for a semi-final spot continues.
The first questions will come over the batting because despite setting the best first innings score in five games in Sharjah, South Africa still did not do enough. Their 124 looked around "10 to 20 runs short," Laura Wolvaardt said at the post-match presser, especially after they started strongly with 31 runs from the first five overs. Tazmin Brits was dismissed on the first ball of the sixth over, trying to create a boundary opportunity by advancing against Linsey Smith, and then South Africa stalled. Wolvaardt and Anneke Bosch played out seven boundary-less overs after the powerplay, which raises concerns about South Africa's approach.
The obvious one is why they chose to send in Bosch ahead of Marizanne Kapp, the player they have used at No.3 for most of the build-up to the tournament. Wolvaardt suggested it was a management decision.
"She's traditionally batted three for us in the past but Annneke was striking it really well leading up to this and Marizanne obviously has quite a hectic workload as a seam-bowling all-rounder," Wolvaardt said. "I think that's something that our batting coach Baakier Abrahams here has been thinking about it for many hours in his room and I'm sure he has a reason behind the line-up as it is." But Wolvaardt said she would, "definitely open to any changes."
If the coaching staff feel the same way, it is simply a change back to what seemed to be their pre-tournament plans, when Kapp herself embraced the prospect of batting higher up the order. If they don't, that might be in keeping with some unusual tournament trends, which has seen other batters also coming in out of position, seemingly for workload reasons.
Pakistan's captain Fatima Sana, who had been promoted to No.5 in the pre-tournament series against South Africa, has returned to No.7. Asked on two occasions for the reasons behind that, she maintained it was a team decision but Sana's ability for Pakistan (her 30 against Sri Lanka won them their opening game) is as clear as Kapp's for South Africa and both should be batting higher up.
In South Africa's case that would also offer some cushioning to Bosch, who struggled with her strike-rate in challenging batting conditions. She had 14 scoring shots for her 18 runs and faced 12 dot balls which built pressure on the middle order when she was dismissed. Everyone from Bosch down had not batted in the opening game, and on surfaces like these, time in the middle is the best way to craft an approach. Chloe Tryon, Sune Luus and Nadine de Klerk will all want to be able to offer more in future fixtures.
The other reason South Africa struggled to score was the efficacy of England's spinners, who had the advantage of experience in Sharjah, on a slow pitch. Sophie Ecclestone was particularly difficult to get away and her stump to stump line produced 10 dot balls and had the best economy rate of the match: 3.75. Contrastingly, South Africa's two left-arm spinners Nonkululeko Mlaba and Tryon conceded 47 runs in seven overs between them, the latter conceding 25 in three overs.
"Our spinners just lacked a little bit of control in the middle," Wolvaardt said. "I felt like their spinners didn't leave the stumps at all and it was really difficult to get away. But in saying that, it is quite hard to bowl to batters where it seems like all of them have a lap and a reverse sweep and it's hard to set fields for that."
That leaves South Africa with something of a conundrum because they went from a raft of resources against West Indies three days ago to looking as though they lacked a little something in Sharjah. Their options were to include an extra seamer in Tumi Sekhukhune, although an extra pacer did not seem like an immediately sensible option in Sharjah, or to take a punt on the 18-year old legspinner Seshnie Naidu, which may have felt like throwing her to the wolves. Either way, that would have come at the expense of a batter, likely Annerie Dercksen, whose 20 not out off 11 balls showed why South Africa could not afford to do that.
Getting the team combination right in Sharjah is tricky, especially as South Africa had not even seen the venue before the game. Training sessions are held at the ICC Academy in Dubai so they came into this game blind on actual experience, even though they kept an eye on proceedings on the television. They may look back and think they did not get it quite right and can use this match to consider how to approach things if they find themselves back here.
South Africa do not play any more group games in Sharjah and next face Scotland in a day game and Bangladesh in a night game in Dubai. They could, however, find themselves playing a semi-final in Sharjah and if they get there, will want to show they have learnt their lesson.