Proteas fired up after T20 World Cup win over New Zealand

Momentum Proteas all-rounder Chloe Tryon says the team has to keep their fire burning for the rest of the Women's T20 World Cup following their win over New Zealand. 

The Proteas registered their first win of the tournament last night when they defeated New Zealand by 65 runs at Boland Park, Paarl. The performance was a contrast to the jittery showing on the opening day loss to Sri Lanka. The win has taken SA to third place in Pool A, they are behind Australia and Sri Lanka. 

Tryon was instrumental with the bat and bowl against New Zealand, contributing 40 runs off 34 balls as the Proteas finished with 132/6 after their allocated 20 overs. With the ball, she finished with figures of 2/12, with Nonkululeko Mlaba (3/10), Marizanne Kapp (2/13), Ayabonga Khaka (1/9) and Shabnim Ismail (1/7) all helping to bowl out their opponents for 67.

The Proteas vice-captain received the Player of the Match gong after her inspiring performance. In her post-match press conference, Tryon said that the difference between the first game against Sri Lanka and last night's encounter was that they had a burning desire to do well. 

“Everyone came with the mindset of working hard, we put up a score of 130 plus, I thought it was a little bit short. Every bowler knew what they needed to do, you could see that fire burning, they wanted it so badly," Tryon told the media.

“The competition is still going on. We still have got two good games coming up, we have to make sure we still have that fire coming up. We have to make sure we still have that fire burning and kind of be ruthless as a bowling unit," she said. 

Tryon praised 22-year-old left-arm spinner Mlaba for her performance, saying she set the tone for the rest of the bowling unit as they bowled out New Zealand. 

“Mlaba bowled well today, she set the tone well and every bowl that came on had a plan," she said.  "We knew that as spinners we need to take care of that middle period, we know how attacking their batters are so we couldn’t leave the stumps.

"We spoke about attacking the stumps as much as we can, creating dot ball and putting pressure on them and the wickets will come, we didn’t go searching for anything, I think we bowled well and I think it all came together," said the 29-year-old. 

The Proteas will return to action on Saturday when they meet Australia at St George's Park (7pm). 

"We know how they play, the brand of cricket they play, so it’s important we prepare well for them. We’ll go back to the drawing board and make sure we are 200% when we play them," said Tryon on Australia.