Laura Wolvaardt has been officially appointed South Africa Women's all-formats captain while CSA also announced the 15-player T20I squad for the Bangladesh white-ball series they are due to host next month. Wolvaardt, 24, takes over the reins full-time after a successful stint as interim captain during the recent home series against Pakistan and New Zealand, both of which South Africa won 2-1. She has played 86 ODIs and 59 T20Is for the country, scoring 3421 runs with 30 fifties and four hundreds in the 50-overs cricket and 1313 runs at an average of 32.82 with nine half-centuries in the shortest format of the game. Wolvaardt made her Test debut in South Africa's return to red-ball cricket during last year's tour of England. Wolvaardt's first series in-charge as full-time captai will, however, see few notable absentees. Among the centrally contracted players not available for the T20I series, beginning on December 3 in Benoni, are fast bowler Ayabonga Khaka (knee injury) and all-rounders Chloe Tyron (groin) and Nadine de Klerk (side strain)."Having Laura Wolvaardt as the official captain, together with a blend of young and experienced players bodes well for our succession planning," said the Convenor of Selectors, Clinton du Preez.
"It will also assist within the excitement we have around the squad in giving young players an opportunity and therefore we are looking forward to seeing them put up their hand and make impactful performances in this upcoming tour."We are excited to provide an opportunity to our extended identified group, especially on the back of some injuries. This allows us to have an indepth look at players for the ICC Women's T20 World Cup taking place next year in Bangladesh."The inclusion of Ayanda Hlubi and Eliz-Mari Marx gives great confidence to rewarding performances at the professional level. They have been instrumental with their domestic performances in the past season for their respective provinces,"Head coach Hilton Moreeng said: "From our perspective, it is about continuing the good work that has been done. We know we are playing against Bangladesh who just came off a very successful tour against Pakistan."For the T20Is, this is where we are going to look, where possible, to blend in youngsters and give an opportunity to expose them at this level to keep growing the base. Overall, we have a lot of good youngsters coming through and the squad is becoming stronger and stronger every day with a more challenging environment, so we as a team are looking forward to that."It's another opportunity for some of these youngsters to show what they can do while not losing sight of what we want to achieve overall when it comes to the entire tour," he concluded.
