Returning from international retirement, Ismail is hoping to make a valuable contribution to the Proteas team at the Women’s T20 World Cup.
Playing her first match for the Proteas in more than three years, albeit in an unofficial fixture, Shabnim Ismail admitted she had a wobbly start to her international return, but the 37-year-old seam bowler was generally pleased with her performance in a training game for the national team ahead of the Women’s T20 World Cup.
In the first of three training games against Australia on Sunday, on the sidelines of a training camp in Arundel, Ismail took 4/39, playing a key role as the Proteas picked up a morale boosting seven-run victory over the world’s top-ranked side.
“I was really excited in the first over, but I bowled a no-ball or two and I was thinking ‘oh, here we go again’,” said Ismail, who announced her international retirement in 2023 but recently made a u-turn on that decision.
“And it was so funny because every time in the nets the coach (Mandla Mashimbyi) is like ‘Shibs, no ball’ and I was like ‘coach, don’t stress about it’, but he gave me a mouthful and told me ‘Shibs, you need to work’ and I was like ‘coach, I’ll do that definitely’.
“But it was really nice getting over the rope today with the girls. I really felt happy and I’m glad I made the choice to come back and play with them.”
Sharpening up ahead of World Cup
With Australia needing 24 runs off 18 balls to win the training game, Ismail helped to strangle them at the death, and though she felt she needed to tidy things up ahead of the World Cup starting in England later this month, she believed she would be ready to hit her straps at the T20 showpiece.
“I’m still not happy with certain things, which I will go back to the nets to work on, but the way the bowling unit came out we were confident enough to know we were going to defend the score,” she said.
“Australia is a world-class team, they’ve got world-class players in their team, and for us to get the wickets at crucial stages in the game really took the momentum forward for us.”
