School of hard knocks to produce talent for Proteas

Cricket South Africa national academy women’s coach Dinesha Devnarain has called on players to break through the hardships they will experience during camp. 

The academy, which is aligned with the Proteas has been a springboard for many international players, the likes of Marizanne Kapp, Chloė Tryon and Ayabonda Khaka worked on their skills and tactical development while attending the academy. 

Devnarain and her team got together at the start of the month and will work right through the winter season. One aspect Devnarian will aim to highlight to players is the pressures that come with playing for the Proteas, the national team. 

“Women’s cricket is massive at the moment, investment and programmes like this are important. Entirely, I want the national academy to be a bridge to introduce them to international cricket,” Devnarian said.

“Everyone wants to play for the Proteas, but no one wants to talk about the sacrifices; no one talks about the hardship, the tears behind the closed doors, the blocks that you have to go through; that’s what I want the national academy to be.

“I don’t want it to be a comfortable place, I want it to be a space where you can go back and revisit the person you are, and reflect on where you are as a cricketer and where you want to be and what’s stopping [you] . These are those hard conversations that most players don’t want to hear. They want to hear the good stuff; they want to hear 'you have a lot of potential' but 10 years from now they will do retrospection of what they should have done today,” she said. 

Strengthening the players mentally will also be at the top of the former SA international’s agenda. 

“As a coach of the programme, what I enjoy the most is the mental part of it, it’s not so much skill. I have seen a lot of talented players come through provincial level and drop out,” she said.

“A big part of my philosophy is players first and then performance. We cannot take care of performance if we cannot take care of the  player first.” 

CSA NATIONAL WOMEN’S ACADEMY SQUAD 2023:

Andrie Steyn, Nondumiso Shangase, Nobulumko Baneti, Raisibe Ntozakhe, Janė Winster, Mieke De Ridder, Tebogo Macheke, Micaėla Andrews, Annerie Dercksen, Leah Jones, Oluhle Siyo, Asakhe Nyovane, Jenna Evans, Eliz-Mari Marx, Ayanda Hlubi, Refilwe Moncho.