Among the things that Proteas head coach Mandla Mashimbyi wanted to see in the Ireland series was his fringe players getting runs and wickets under their belts.
This was, of course, with a view to the Women’s T20 World Cup in mid-2026. He wanted to see who could substitute whom in his depth-building mission.
When he saw batter Faye Tunnicliffe, who forms part of the players who hardly get a chance to make a major contribution to the national set-up, performing, he would have been delighted.
Tunnicliffe, a wicketkeeper-batter, is a like-for-like replacement for Sinalo Jafta.
She scored her maiden T20 fifty on Sunday at Boland Park in Paarl and led the Proteas to a four-wicket victory.
That win meant that the Proteas clinched the three-match series 2-0 with a game in hand.
Since making her debut in her T20 in 2018, Tunnicliffe had only chalked up 13 appearances before Sunday and had only scored 80 runs.
The 26-year-old revealed after the game that she had been having conversations with Mashimbyi about how they saw her in their plans.
“Yeah, well, I mean, the goal is to win that World Cup, but to me personally, they just say like what you’ve been doing has been working, so just express yourself out there and do you,” she said.
“It’s good to have a couple of series wins like this one behind us, leading up to that.
“Yeah, and I think what they’re doing with the rotation now is pretty cool, giving some of us young bucks some game time, which is cool.
“I think that’s always going to be in the sights, and we want to play a certain brand of cricket that’s going to slot into the World Cup and hopefully be successful there.”
Tunnicliffe was awarded a spot back in the national setup after an impressive domestic season.
She was among the top run-scorers for her provincial team, Western Province, and was happy to transfer that form to the Proteas.
“We always talk about that gap between provincial and national, and you can feel it,” Tunnicliffe said.
“It’s quite a step up, but as I said in the interview, there’s still a lot to learn so I’ll take the lessons.
“I think the main thing is that we national players take a lot back to provincial and then we work our way up from there.”
The Proteas’ next game is at the Willowmoore Park Cricket Stadium in Benoni on Wednesday (6pm).
They then head to East London for the first ODI between the teams on Saturday.
After that, they will drive along the coast to Gqeberha for the second match at St George’s Park.
