Proteas ready to play their 'best cricket' in World Cup opener, says allrounder Chloe Tyron

The Proteas Women have only beaten England once since their World Cup semifinal defeat in Christchurch four years ago.

Since then, there have been six ODI encounters between the rivals with England triumphant in the other five.

Abundant reason, then, for Laura Wolvaardt’s team to be rank underdogs heading into Friday’s World Cup opener in Guwahati.

But hold hard there. Although England came back to win the series 2-1 in South Africa last December, the Proteas opening six-wicket win in Kimberley served as a marker.

Not only are these two teams closer than they have been for years but it was the beginning of new coach Mandla Mashimbyi’s tenure after the long-serving Hilton Moreeng.

Along with some fresh-faces that have infused a much-needed youthful energy into the Proteas squad, allrounder Chloe Tryon therefore feels the team is ready to match their group stage victory over the same opponents at the last World Cup here in northeastern India.

“I think the team has changed a lot over the last couple of years, so I'm not looking at too much of that stats,” Tryon told the media on Wednesday.

“We've got some young players coming in, but we've got a lot of experienced players, and I think that everyone's just taken upon their role really beautifully. 

“I think the way that we've worked our prep behind the scenes has been really good. 

“I think at the end of the day, we're going into a World Cup where we're playing the best in the world.

“It's an opening game, so there's a lot of pressure on everyone, but just making sure that we put up our hands and play our best cricket. 

“I'm not really worried about stats that have happened before, but I think for us it's just making sure that we're present and we're just playing our best cricket.”

That does not mean Tyron, who has recently returned from The Hundred where she rubbed shoulders with many of the England team, is not acutely aware of the danger the 2017 champions pose, especially skipper Natalie Sciver-Brunt.

“As a unit, they're just really that strong. I think they're led by one of the best all-rounders in the world in their captain (Sciver-Brunt), and I think she leads the way perfectly.

“I think everyone just feeds off her.  I think every single one of them are match winners. I just think we have to make sure that we're playing our game.

“We show up with a lot of presence. We give 200%. I think we've shown that we can beat them in the past, and we have, but just making sure that we're still being really positive going into the first game.”

Tryon has been in good form heading into her fourth World Cup, striking an unbeaten 45 in the last warm-up game against Pakistan.

She feels the Proteas have formulated a power-packed middle-order along with Marizanne Kapp, Annerie Dercksen and Anneke Bosch to help alleviate the pressure on the traditionally strong top-order.

"I think we've got a really good line-up. We bat really deep, which is really important in a 50-over tournament like this," Tyron said.

"Just making sure that we can build partnerships at the back end if we do collapse a little bit in the middle, but just making sure that everyone understands their role. It's just good to see that everyone's on board with that.

"I think as a batting unit, we've come a lot of strides over the last couple of months. You can see that there's a big difference in our batting and our approach in our batting department. We want to be posting scores of over 300, so just making sure that whether we bat or bowl first, we've still got really good intent as a batting unit."