Season of Ambition - Captains Share Personal Goals for the Hollywoodbets Pro Series

As Cricket South Africa is now weeks into its second Professional Women’s Domestic season, it continues to thrive under its new name – the Hollywoodbets Pro Series, which includes both the Hollywoodbets Pro50 and Pro20 Competitions.

This exciting transformation followed the announcement of Hollywoodbets as the main sponsor, marking a significant new chapter in South Africa’s women’s cricket.

The professionalisation of women’s cricket now allows the top 6 teams, which make up Division 1, to contract 11 players each, further bolstered by the addition of high-performance and nationally contracted players.

This marks a significant step in elevating the standard of women’s cricket, ensuring a competitive and well-resourced environment for players at the highest level.

Looking forward to the season ahead, the captains of the six Division 1 teams are focused on elevating their performance and contributing to their teams’ success, with personal goals ranging from consistency and discipline to continuous improvement and making impactful plays in critical moments

We caught up with a few of them to find out what specific personal goals they have set for themselves and how they believe their skills and experience contribute to the team’s overall strategy and performance. This is what they had to say…

Knights Captain, Izel Cilliers: This season, I really want to focus on being more consistent with my batting and stepping up in those nail-biting moments. I think my experience can help guide the younger players.

Lions Captain, Kgomotso Rapoo: My personal goals are quite simple: always be 1% better than the previous season. Playing as a leg-spin all-rounder is not that easy, but my coming to bat in the middle will help our team, especially with the mindset role I’m playing.

WP Women’s Captain, Leah Jones: My goal for this season is just to be the best disciplined version of myself, meaning that I want to be a more disciplined cricketer in all areas (on and off the field). I think we’re a team that has a lot of talented and hardworking players, so I would like to take lots of wickets, especially big wickets, score lots of runs, save runs in the field, and take catches (easy or difficult) so that I can contribute to our team winning games.

Hollywoodbets Dolphins Pro50 Captain, Nondumiso Shangase: My goal is to make more runs and bowl more overs than last season. My team is strong, and we have talented players who can take the game away from the opposition. My experience and skills are just the cherry on top. As far as inspiration goes, Coach Dinesha is playing a huge role in my life; she has changed the way I see the game and the way I play. The support we receive is really important; it boosts us and encourages us to do well.

Fidelity Titans Captain, Masabata Klaas: My personal goals for this season is to make sure that I always contribute to the team and ensuring that I’m giving my best in the field of play with the experience I have from the National Team I believe that it makes a huge difference in the team with regards to the way I’m always willing to help out other players..

Six Gun Grill Garden Route Badgers Captain, Nicolien janse van Rensburg: My goal for this season is to be the best version of myself and to do everything possible and what is expected of me to help my team win games. I think the passion I have for the game will also inspire my teammates to give it their all and to leave everything out on the field every single game.