Give us more Test cricket, Proteas women's team demands

Despite spending more than 100 overs in the field in 40°C heat, being bashed from one side of the WACA to the other and finishing the second day’s play still trailing Australia by more than 400 runs, with only seven second innings wickets in hand, Nadine de Klerk still loves Test cricket.

“I hope we get (to play) more of it,” De Klerk said, without a hint of sarcasm. Part of the problem for South Africa in the one-off Test being dominated by Australia, is that they don’t play more with the red ball.

Besides the absence of a domestic first class competition, this is just their second Test in two years, their third in a decade and their first against an Australian team, for whom Test cricket is becoming an increasingly regular feature. 

They may not be playing multi-match series’s like the men do, but Alyssa Healy’s team plays more than South Africa. Last year they played an Ashes match in Nottingham and then faced India in Mumbai in December. 

“As South Africans we don’t play this at home, it is difficult and to try to compete at Test level is hard when you only play a Test every two or three years,” said De Klerk, who made her debut against England in 2022. 

“This is unknown territory for us, we are trying to figure out as much as we can about this game, so we need to take out as much as we can and try to get better.” 

The Proteas head into the third day of the match on 67/3, still trailing Australia’s world record first innings total of 575/9 declared by 463 runs.

South Africa’s top order struggles, a feature of the preceding limited overs matches, continued in Perth.

After a first innings in which they were bowled out for 76, on Friday they slumped to 13/3, with Laura Wolvaardt’s problems outside her off stump continuing, though on this occasion she was more the victim of a terrific delivery from Darcie Brown, which she nicked giving Healy an easy catch behind. 

With Sune Luus (5) and Anneke Bosch, who snagged ‘a pair’ joining her it was left to two of the debutants, Tazmin Brits and Delmi Tucker, to earn some respectability for the visitors with an as yet unbeaten 54-run partnership for the fourth wicket. Brits will resume on Saturday on 18 with Tucker not out on 27. 

“We’ve already had a much better day today with the bat, we’ve had a good partnership and it's about taking that into the next couple of days — digging deeper and fighting really hard,” said De Klerk.

She picked up 2/96 in 21 overs of toil, with Masabatha Klaas and Chloe Tryon taking three wickets each. 

Annabel Sutherland became the ninth women’s batter to make a double hundred, finishing with 210, an innings that lasted more than five hours, in which she faced 215 balls and struck 27 fours and two sixes. 

“It was exceptional. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that good of an innings live,” said De Klerk.