We need to back ourselves to keep Smriti Mandhana quiet: SA's De Klerk

Visakhapatnam, Oct 8 (PTI) Smriti Mandhana might not yet have fired in this Women's World Cup, but keeping the talismanic Indian opener silent tops the wish list of South Africa, said all-rounder Nadine de Klerk on Wednesday.

Mandhana has a wonderful record in ODIs against South Africa, having scored 906 runs from 18 matches at an average of 53.29 with three hundreds.

"Yeah, she's a quality player. She's done well against us in the past. But I think with conditions being a bit on the slower side, we're going to really back ourselves to either keep her quiet or try to put her under pressure and get her early," De Klerk said on the eve of the match against India.

Mandhana and her opening partner Pratika Rawal have amassed 1200 runs in just 15 innings together at an incredible average of 80, and Klerk wanted to snap that alliance early.

"We will try and break that opening stand that's been so successful for them over the last couple of months and really try and get that middle-order in as early as possible.

"We all know if you haven't quite spent as much time in the middle, it's quite difficult in tricky conditions to walk in and put up massive scores. So yeah, hopefully everything goes according to plan," she said.

De Klerk said starting well with both bat and ball holds the key for South Africa against India in their own conditions.

"It's (playing against India) a really exciting challenge. I presume the key will be to start well, either take a couple of wickets early and gain some momentum to sort of silence the crowd. It's actually been a big topic over the last couple of months, to be honest.

"I think that the only way you put teams on the back foot really is by taking wickets. When you bowl first, you want to strike early, and put teams on the back foot. And when you bat first, you want to try and combat that by not losing two or three wickets in the power play," she explained.

Indian bowlers have been spot on in this World Cup, and De Klerk said South Africa will prepare for a spin-heavy attack of the home side.

"India has quality bowling in attack, especially their new ball bowlers have been quite successful, even in conditions that suit the spinners. They're looking to swing the ball early on and kind of put the teams on the back foot by picking up a few early wickets.

"But we do expect them to be spin heavy (on Thursday). It has been so, whenever we've played them, even in the tri-series (last year), it's been spin dominant. So, I think spin is going to be really key for both sides. I think whoever plays spin the best will come out on top," she said.

The 25-year-old said South Africa has moved on from their abysmal 69 all out against England in their first game.

"I think it was just an eye-opener and we have to be ready for every single game we play. I think it was a bit unexpected that first game and we got blown away... you get rolled over for 70 (69), which is never nice. And I think everybody took it quite personally. We didn't dig too deep into it, to be honest.

"I think, (skipper) Laura (Wolvaardt) said it as well, we're much better than 69 all out. We just had a horrible day and there was no one that put their hands up and kind of just got stuck in the middle. But I think we moved on pretty quickly," she added. PTI UNG UNG AH AH