SA sweep ODI series against Ireland

Laura Wolvaardt has reached the stage with her batting where she’s no longer thinking about technique, the opposition’s field placements and what shot to play.

Everything about her batting just “feels good, pretty chilled, pretty calm,” said Wolvaardt.

“It feels like I’m just hitting the balls where they need to go and not really searching too much.”

Elite athletes dream of being in such a headspace. “It feels like I’m not even thinking when I’m in the middle — I’m looking at the crowd, looking at the bowlers and the runs are just flowing,” she said.

Her form in the last three months has been ridiculous. After a sluggish start to the World Cup in India, in her next 10 ODI innings she has passed 50 seven times, and turned four of those into hundreds.

She’s finished 2025 with a total of five centuries, scoring 1,174 in 21 innings at an average of 61.78. Only India’s Smriti Mandhana, who also scored five hundreds this year, has scored more runs this year — 1,362 at an average of 61.90.

“There were six months at the start of the year where I was over-thinking it. Should I sweep this? Should I lap this? Should I leave? You are almost overthinking yourself out of form,” said Wolvaardt.

“It’s weird how it happens, the harder you try, the worse it goes and when you get into a chilled, relaxed mode out there it just happens. At training I’m still trying to think what I need to do, and in the middle I’m really chilled. It’s working at the moment.”

Such has been her form in the second half of 2025, that a hundred under the new bright floodlights at the Wanderers on Friday seemed inevitable. Her hundredth run was also the winning run for the Proteas, who secured the series 3-0 win against a brave Irish team, but one that lacked the ability to extend their good periods or build much pressure against Wolvaardt.

“It was great to see some youngsters performing well. The purpose of (selection) was good — we have the next 50-over World Cup in mind and need to build a base,” said Wolvaardt.

Karabo Meso played all three ODIs, impressing Wolvaardt with her wicketkeeping skills and briefly on Friday night showed ability with the bat in a 56–run second-wicket partnership.

Miane Smit, struck a maiden half-century and hit the winning runs in the first match in East London. “It’s nice to have that all-rounder,” Wolvaardt said of the 20-year-old.

South Africa’s fielding was ragged and the bowling, in the absence of Marizanne Kapp and Ayabonga Khaka, lacked consistency. “In that second game especially, there were a couple of good balls and then one would slip. We were off the stumps too much in that game.”

Overall, having won the T20 series 2-0, with one match rained out and swept the ODIs, South Africa got what they wanted out of the matches against Ireland. “This was a good opportunity to try some things, but you also don’t want to go too far and lose games of cricket. I think we found the balance in this series — keeping that core group together, moving around some youngsters. Most of the senior players played in all the games and they stepped up when the going got tough,” said Wolvaardt.