Newly-appointed Proteas Women head coach Mandla Mashimbyi says winning a World Cup and dominating world cricket are his main objectives in his new role. KHUNULOGO MPOLOKENG reports.
Mashimbyi spoke with the media for the first time since his appointment at CSA headquarters in Johannesburg on Tuesday, where he, along with the director of national teams and high performance Enoch Nkwe, shared the vision for the women’s team going forward.
“You now have an opportunity to dominate world cricket,” said Mashimbyi. “I’ve done well in franchise cricket, and I think it was time for me to go into this space and make sure that I do well here, and I think I’ve got the right players to do that.”
Nkwe confirmed that the former Northerns Titans coach’s contract will run from 1 December until the end of April 2027.
Mashimbyi said he expected a more challenging environment in the national team to that of the Titans, particularly because of the extra media and public attention that the role draws.
“The first challenge is, are the players going to trust your vision?” said Mashimbyi. “The second challenge is the pressure of the media, and the third is whether you’re winning or not because we’re judged on performance. So it’s going to be key that I hit the road running and make sure that we get those wins because then it becomes simpler for me to impart my vision to the players.”
Mashimbyi said he looked forward to working to increase the intensity with which the team plays, which is part of the plan to getting to their ultimate goal of winning a World Cup.
The 44-year-old coach said his priority would be to create a healthy working environment in the team so as to improve the players’ relations with each other.
“My philosophy is simple, it’s around people because I believe that better people make better cricketers. And when the environment allows for people to be good, it becomes easy to coach and work with those people. They must also understand the importance of being good people for their own growth as well, and what it means is that they’ll be good to each other, for and with each other. And if they do that, you’ll find a team that is going to really fight until the end for one another.
“The one thing you don’t want as a player is another player wanting it more than you do,” said Mashimbyi. “And intensity speaks to that, it’s saying: ‘I’m more hungry than you, I want it more than you; I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that I get it before you do’, and that’s the type of mindset and attitude that I want our players to operate with.
“When I say high intensity, I’m not saying hit sixes and fours, but it’s just the mindset and the attitude that you bring because it’s controllable and performance is not. If we look after the things that we control and we look after them to the best of our abilities as a group, then all bodes well for us.”
Having been whitewashed by England in the recently-concluded three-match T20I series, Mashimbyi said he would also work to improve the team’s consistency in bilateral series.
“If we want to become a force in world cricket, we have to dominate our series. We’ve been really inconsistent in terms of series. We’ll play well in tournaments, but [good performances] in series have been few and far in between.
“Once you start dominating series, you get the belief that you can actually go all the way in the tournaments as well because you’ve played almost everyone and you’ve dominated. You know what they’re about, you know what they bring to the table and you’ve conquered it before. It will be easy for you to go in with the mindset of saying ‘we’re winning here today’.”
Photo: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
