Proteas women shrug off 'World Cup favourites' pressure: 'We take it as confidence'

Proteas women's captain Sune Luus shrugged off the side's growing favourites tag ahead of the ICC Women's World Cup in New Zealand.

South Africa play a World Cup warm-up game against India women this Saturday night (22:00 SA time) before beginning their tournament against Bangladesh on Saturday, 5 March.

Some in the cricket press corps have slapped the favourites sticker on Luus' ladies for their successes in the West Indies series, away win to India and victory in New Zealand in 2020.

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SA is ranked second in the world in One-Day cricket behind Australia and boasts two batters in the ODI top 10 in the world (Lizelle Lee and Laura Wolvaardt) and three in the bowling stakes (Shabnim Ismail, Ayabonda Khaka and Marizanne Kapp).

Kapp is also rated as the third-best all-rounder on the planet.

But Luus said that being seen as frontrunners didn't add pressure on her side.

"I don't think that tag adds any pressure on our team. We don't see it like that, and we don't carry that around," she said.

"But it does give us confidence to go into this tournament and play the kind of cricket we've been playing in the past year or two.

"Everyone is taking it one game at a time and not putting too much extra pressure ourselves. It's a World Cup, so there's natural pressure from all over, so we're not going to add anything else.

"We can take the confidence from that into the tournament, though."

Luus hoped that the Hilton Moreeng-coached side would draw from their landslide win in New Zealand the last time they were Down Under would see them in good stead for this year's tournament.

The Proteas won the ODI series 3-0 weeks before making the ICC T20 Women's World Cup