England and South Africa: Close women's contest expected

Today's encounter between the South African and English women at Chelmsford is the first of what should be a very interesting five-match series. England are desperate to halt a slide which has seen them lose 11 of their last 12 international matches, whilst South Africa will be aiming to improve on their last tour of England in 1997, when they lost the series 2-1. This series is South Africa's only international contest as they prepare for the 2000 CricInfo Women's World Cup in New Zealand at the end of the year.

In many ways, the teams will be meeting from the opposite ends of the spectrum. England have a long tradition of international cricket, starting with their first international tour in 1934-35 (to Australia - they won the series 3-0), and including winning two world cups. South Africa's women's competition was re-formed, after a long isolation due to apartheid, less that five years ago, and their last tour of England and Ireland was their first overseas tour ever. Since then they have also participated in the 6th World cup (finishing fifth) and toured Australia and New Zealand last year.

South Africa have managed a nice combination of experience and new and eager players, with five of their squad of 14 never having represented their country before. The shock of the team has been the reappointment of ex-captain, Kim Price, back to the captaincy. She was not in the squad for their last tour of Australia, and was generally believed to have retired.

England have their own controversies surrounding ex-captains, when Karen Smithies pronounced herself shocked to have been excluded from the squad. In truth, she probably would have been the only one, as her performances in Australia and NZ showed both an astounding lack of form with the bat, whilst her bowling, which has always been her biggest strength was not utilised at all.

The English team, with the inclusion of Arran Thompson and Laura Harper, now probably have, on paper, their strongest-looking team for some years. In the past they have been rather hampered by the lack of specialists, relying greatly on allrounders. Their current team consists of rather more recognisable positions, such as an opening pace attack with Lucy Peason, Clare Taylor, and possibly Nicki Shaw. They had a very successful spinner in Dawn Holden in Australia, who should do extremely well on the English wickets. Their batting remains steady, rather than brilliant, with only really Charlotte Edwards previously showing the ability to lift an innings. Fielding should be high quality, with women's cricket leading wicketkeeper at the stumps, and such limelights as Melissa Reynard lifting the field.

The South African bowlers most likely to trouble England are Cindy Eksteen, a very accurate fast medium, Helen Davis, their best slow medium, and Levona Lewis, a tearaway left arm seamer. Their batting is largely a repeat of England's without any notable outstanding batsmen. Denise Reid, Kim Price and Anina Burger can all be relied upon to produce a steady 15-25 runs each. What they need, and have hopefully found in their new recruits, is someone to take on the English bowling. If they do that, they could be surprisingly successful.

My prediction is that the series will end 3-1 in England's favour, but they will have to work hard to achieve at least two of their victories. England's problem in the past has been complacency - the Australian/NZ tour should have cured them of that, and South Africa will have to wait a little longer before claiming the world number four spot.