Exclusive: Lauren Filer on England’s Resilience in South Africa After World Cup Disappointment

England completed a 3-0 T20 series win against South Africa following their nine-wicket victory in the third and final T20 encounter at Supersport Park in Centurion on Saturday.

It is a series victory that was much needed, following a World Cup showing where their unexpected elimination in the group stages posed a lot of questions to Heather Knight and her chargers ahead of this tour.

Their emphatic comeback against a formidable South African side will never replace what could have been had they beaten the West Indies at the global showpiece, but it will go a long way into closing that chapter and focusing more on what the future holds. 

The South African challenge

Apart from the first T20 match, the series did not deliver on expectations as England was fairly dominant over the home side in the second (36-run victory) and third matches.

Right-arm pace bowler Lauren Filer told Sportsboom.com that playing South Africa soon after the conclusion of the World Cup was a good opportunity for them, and their solid performances against a dangerous Proteas side showed their quality.

“Obviously the World Cup was a hard thing to take; after that I thought we had kicked on to where we wanted to be as a team. One game doesn’t define us, and I think we have shown that over the last three games.”

“We don't take any team for granted, and I think South Africa can be very dangerous, so we took it in our stride and tried to play our best cricket, and hopefully we showed that as well on the pitch.”

“But without thinking too much about the opposition, we didn't underestimate them; they can be dangerous, but we were just on the right end of the results. I hope we can kick on in the One Day Internationals (ODI) and the one-off Test match and prove that we are still a very good team.”

The surfaces, lessons, and the powerplay

The 23-year-old Manchester Originals bowler has been happy with the surfaces so far but also highlighted the importance of the team maintaining their good starts, especially in the powerplay, as they now look forward to the rest of the tour.

“I have enjoyed the pitches; I just had a chat with one of the coaches, and they asked me if I wish I could take the wicket back to England.”

“I have loved it here; the extra bounce really helps and makes me feel a bit more threatening, especially with the older ball. But on pitches like these, you can easily get carried away with bowling the short ball just because it looks and feels quite nice.”

“You still want to cannon in on the stumps and have a wicket-taking mindset; those are probably the learnings I take from the last couple of games.”

“Getting wickets in the powerplay was very important, and there is probably some statistic that says that if you take three or four wickets in the powerplay, you are more likely to win.

“It's important for us to have a good start, and I think we have done that quite consistently over this T20 series. It was really important, and hopefully we can take that into the ODIs and try and get an early wicket and make a stamp on the game.”

Adjusting to the different formats

Filer added that the series win was good for the visitors, but they will need to make the required adjustments in the upcoming matches.

“The series win was a big boost; we haven’t played a lot of ODI cricket in the last year, so I think it will be a good challenge for us to sort of get back into that mindset and push on.”

“The Ashes is coming up soon as well, so we are trying to sort of get through the different formats; it is what we will have to do in January, so I think it will be a really good challenge, and hopefully we can deliver the win again.”