Dinesha Devnarain excited about young womens cricket talent

Devnarain coached the SA U19 side at the recent T20 World Cup in Malaysia, going all the way to the final, where they were completely outplayed by India. In the absence of the trophy, she found something even better - the future stars of Proteas Women’s cricket – and she says there’s more where that came from.

“I think the U19 programme speaks of its successes. The first one obviously being Ayanda Hlubi, and then Karabo Meso, Miane Smit and Seshnie Naidu that’s obviously made their Proteas debuts. And, you know, I definitely think there’s still a lot more that’s going to come from that pine line”, she remarked.

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She continued to say that they are looking to graduate as many of the current crop of youngsters at their disposal to the senior team as possible, and have a new cycle begin by 2027, which has been identified as the conclusion of a five-year succession plan by Cricket SA director of national teams and high performance Enoch Nkwe.

“I think once you get to 2027 there’ll be a new influx of U19 cricketers, and that’s good for the system because that just aids in the performance to be of a higher standard up top. And yeah, we’ve got a few here with us [in the Emerging Women’s team], we’ve got Luyanda Nzuza, Simone Lourens, and Mona Lisa Legodi, who’s definitely been putting their hands up”.

There are still a few girls that’s still in school, who probably could compete at this level, so its a very exciting space, and we just hope we can keep producing baby Proteas for the main Proteas side”, she concluded.

Devnarain’s team is currently involved in a three-match T20 series in Bangladesh, and lost their first match after winning the One Day International series 2-1.