South Africa's Women Tour Zimbabwe for the First Time
Five Twenty20 internationals at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo, starting 11 September, with Laura Wolvaardt leading. It is a first between these two sides in this country.
South Africa's women begin a five-match Twenty20 international series in Zimbabwe today, the first time they have toured the country. All five matches are at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo, starting at 1:30pm local, on 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19 September.
Laura Wolvaardt leads a fifteen-player squad.
Why a first tour matters more than a scoreline
South Africa are an established top-tier side. Zimbabwe's women play international cricket far less often, and almost never against opposition of this standard at home.
The result of a five-match series between those two is not the interesting part, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. What is interesting is the volume. Five matches on the same ground against the same opponent is more high-quality cricket than Zimbabwe's women typically get in a year, and it is the format in which improvement is actually measurable rather than hoped for.
What our records say about that gap
The pattern across women's Twenty20 international cricket in our archive is consistent and worth stating plainly. Matches between two full members average 133.1 runs in a completed innings. Matches involving at least one associate or developing side average 112.0, and a fifty is roughly half as likely.
Zimbabwe are not an associate, but their women's side plays a fraction of the fixtures South Africa's does, and a 21-run gap of that kind is what infrequency looks like when you measure it. It closes through exactly this: repeated fixtures against better opposition.
We set out the full picture in our women's T20 two-tier piece.
Reading the series honestly
If South Africa win 5-0, that tells you very little that was not known in advance. What will be worth watching is whether Zimbabwe's totals move across the five matches, whether the same batters keep occupying the crease longer, and whether the margin narrows from the first game to the last.
Those are the measures that survive a lopsided scoreline, and they are the ones a first tour is actually for.
The wider fortnight in women's cricket
The series overlaps the closing stages of the Women's Asia Cup in Dubai, whose semi-finals are being played today and tomorrow, and follows England's three one-day internationals against Ireland. It is an unusually busy stretch for the women's international calendar, which is itself worth noting.