South Africa women’s captain Mignon du Preez is hoping the expectation of being tournament hosts will weigh down Sri Lanka in Wednesday’s ICC Women’s World Twenty20 opener in Galle. Rain has affected practice for all the eight teams during the build-up to the women’s event but fingers are crossed for better weather when the games begin. South Africa has the honour of taking part in the first match, against Sri Lanka, with Du Preez happy to deflect much of the emphasis onto the opposition. “As much as we are under our own pressure to put in a good performance in this tournament, I would say we don’t have as much weight on our shoulders as Sri Lanka do as the hosting nation,” she said. Although they haven’t been able to get outside for a couple of days, Du Preez is happy with the preparations that included T20 and one-day series in Bangladesh and a warm-up fixture against England last weekend in Colombo. “Thankfully we played a practice match against England in Colombo and we have had a few days to get acclimatized to the Sri Lankan conditions after coming straight from a competitive tour of Bangladesh,” Du Preez explained.
