EXCLUSIVE: Proteas Women coach Mandla Mashimbyi focusing on team culture ahead of World Cup

IN his early engagements with the team, Proteas Women's coach Mandla Mashimbyi highlighted how he wishes to help establish a culture that will make every player feel important in the team.

With various camps around the country, Mashimbyi has taken steps to achieve that goal. Recently, the coach hosted a team builder where he challenged the players to reflect on the unique profiles each of them brings to the team environment.

In a fun and insightful twist, Mashimbyi challenged them to take part in an opportunity to engage with one another to better understand each other's strengths, perspectives, and personal contributions to the team.

Mashimbyi believes that culture forms an important part of the team, especially in a World Cup year as the Proteas Women prepare for the ODI World Cup in India and Sri Lanka later this year.

"In terms of culture, it is something that is very close to me because I don't think you can build something strong when the culture is not strong," Mashimbyi told Independent Media in an exclusive interview.

"It's important that our culture is where it needs to be, to create an environment for every player to feel like they belong, an environment that will be fertile for everybody to grow in and an environment where everybody will be understood and listened to. We want an environment where somebody can feel like they are home away from home when they walk into our team environment.

"And also just to build on stronger relationships and connections. To obviously encourage the players to communicate a little bit more with one another so they can further understand one another, and for them to understand the value of teamwork because nobody can win the World Cup by themselves, so it's gonna require the whole squad.

"I think once the culture is good, the environment becomes good, and then a lot of things just come into place that way.

"Something that we emphasise during our team builder is that we need to become better human beings, and better human beings create a really strong culture. I hope whatever we've learned and picked up from the team builder pertaining to our why as a team and the objectives that we want to achieve, helps us to realise how strong we can be in world cricket.

"Hopefully, you know by the time we get to the World Cup, more than half of those things will be taken care of."

Having recently returned from Sri Lanka and the West Indies for white ball tours, Mashimbyi believes that the team achieved what they wanted to achieve in those tours in preparation for the World Cup.

Mashimbyi reiterated that he is happy with where the team is, two months from the start of the ODI World Cup.

"I think the tour to Sri Lanka and the Caribbean was a huge success in terms of the things that I wanted to achieve from them. I think in Colombo, we learned a lot about the team and individuals within the team. In the Caribbean, we learned a lot based on how we would like to play as a team, and we saw some things come together," said Mashimbyi.

"So, for me, that was a great success, and it just gave me a picture of where the missing puzzles are with regards to where we're trying to go and obviously prepping for the World Cup as well.

"I'm really really happy with where things are in terms of the process. We just have a couple of camps coming up just to hit the nail on the head, and then the girls will be ready to go."