If the World T20 warm-up matches are all about learning, the SA women were given some harsh lessons as they went down to England by seven wickets on Monday.

This follows a nine-wicket loss to the TNCA City Juniors on Saturday.

The Proteas women play their first group match against the mighty Australians in Nagpur on Friday, but they will be feeling they did not get much encouragement from their two warm-up matches.

One of the more disturbing aspects was the inability of the senior players to impose themselves. Against the City Juniors, South Africa were restricted to 104-5, with Marizanne Kapp contributing 53 of those runs. England held South Africa to 101-7, in which Trisha Chetty was top-scorer with 31.

In the two matches, opening bat Dane van Niekerk has faced a total of 12 balls without a run; captain Mignon du Preez faced 18 balls for seven runs, Lizelle Lee 25 balls for 11. Those are not the sort of figures they would have been hoping for.

In the Juniors match, Du Preeze put 10 bowlers through their paces; against England, nine were used. But at the end of it all, the go-to women such as Van Niekerk, Kapp, Sune Luus, Shabnim Ismail and Moseline Daniels have had precious few overs out in the middle.

There is much work to be done.

Group A: South Africa Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Sri Lanka. Group B: Bangladesh, England, India, Pakistan, West Indies

SA Fixtures: Friday, 18 March: v Australia (Nagpur); Wednesday, 23 March: v  Ireland (Chennai); Saturday, 26 March: v New Zealand (Bengaluru); Monday, 28 March: v Sri Lanka (Bengaluru).