• A 27-strong Proteas Women’s squad will assemble for a camp in Pretoria from Thursday.
• The camp will include fitness assessments and technical skills sessions with two red-ball, inter-squad matches.
• Shabnim Ismail, Laura Wolvaardt, Ayabonga Khaka, Sune Luus, Marizanne Kapp and Mignon du Preez will miss the camp due to their involvement in the FairBreak Invitational in Dubai.

The Proteas Women are set to attend a two-week national training camp at the Cricket South Africa (CSA) High Performance Centre in Pretoria.

It will be the first time the SA women convene since the Cricket World Cup in New Zealand in March.

The camp, scheduled for 5-20 May, will include fitness assessments and technical skills sessions with two red-ball, inter-squad matches.

The red-ball matches will help the Proteas prepare for their first Test in eight years on their multi-format tour of England from 27 June – 25 July.

The England tour will be preceded by three T20 Internationals and three ICC Women’s Championship One-Day Internationals against Ireland in Dublin between 3-17 June.

“We took a lot of positives from the World Cup, and it was important for us to give the players a well-deserved break after almost 90 days away from home, to give them time to regroup and spend time with family,” head coach Hilton Moreeng said in a statement.

“There are two boxes we would like to tick (during camp). The first one would be fitness and rehabilitation assessments and then also make sure we touch base with the overall squad, including the high-performance and national academy players.

“We are also now looking at how we can address the red-ball because this will be our first Test match after a very long time, so this camp will be giving everyone an opportunity to play red-ball cricket, which as you know in the country, is not a format that we’ve played a lot.  It is going to be new for most players and this will be a good opportunity for them to get exposed to that so we can be ready for the Test match when we get to England.”

It’s a 27-strong squad, with a number of promising talents from the South African Emerging squad, including Nondumiso Shangase, Delmi Tucker and Leah Jones, training with the Proteas stars who travelled to the global showpiece in New Zealand.

Five contracted players – Shabnim Ismail, Laura Wolvaardt, Ayabonga Khaka, Sune Luus and Marizanne Kapp – as well as Mignon du Preez, who recently retired from ODI and Test cricket, will miss the camp due to their involvement in the inaugural FairBreak Invitational in Dubai.

Captain Dane van Niekerk will briefly join the squad for a medical assessment as she continues to recover from an ankle injury, while all-rounder Anneke Bosch returns from the injury on her right thumb that kept her out of the World Cup 18-player squad.

Clinton du Preez, the Proteas’ convenor of selectors, added: “We have a few players away at the FairBreak tournament in Dubai and therefore it poses a great opportunity for the emerging and the provincial players who have done well in domestic cricket to attend the national camp to put themselves out there with the rest of the nationally contracted squad.”

Following the Ireland and England tours, South Africa will turn their attention to their historic campaign in the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, getting underway from 29 July with the gold medal match on Sunday, 7 August. The SA women are drawn in Group B with England, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka.

“We have to ensure that we balance the outcomes of both formats as we prepare for the Women’s Championship and also the T20 focus as this will be our inaugural participation in the Commonwealth Games, which will also be great preparation for the upcoming T20 World Cup to be hosted in South Africa in 2023,” Du Preez said.