Johannesburg, Sep 14 (IANS): South Africa women's all-rounder Chloe Tryon has acknowledged the responsibility that comes with her position as the team's vice-captain, a role she has done brilliantly in an action-packed year so far.

The Durban-born Chloe was officially appointed the vice-captain along with captain Sune Luus for the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup hosted in New Zealand when all-rounder Dane van Niekerk was made unavailable due to ankle fracture.

Using her experience gained from a combined total of over 170 T20 Internationals and One-Day Internationals, Tryon has relished the duty bestowed upon her, with her focus being on helping with the cultivation of team spirit, while guiding the youngsters along the way.

"I have enjoyed the vice-captaincy role. I am still working on it, and it is about making sure that I am also leading from the front, and I am giving as much input as I can, especially to the youngsters. I am really tight with the senior group in the team because we have a lot of senior players that have key roles in our squad."

"You have got to be making sure, which I feel I have done well, that the team is feeling good about their game and as a team we are gelling. If you are on tour; two, three months at a time, that can become really challenging at times, especially when the cricket is not going your way. It is just about making sure that we all stick together; we still play well together as a team and bounce ideas off each other about how we can move forward as a team. That is really important," said Chloe in an official release issued by Cricket South Africa (CSA).

After securing a second consecutive ODI World Cup semifinal berth, South Africa achieved more success with series wins over Ireland, before facing tough times in trips to England and in the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games. Chloe believes the team is on the right track ahead of next year's ICC Women's T20 World Cup that will be held in South Africa between February 9 and 26.

"It's been a little bit up and down. It's been quite a rollercoaster if you can call It that. We played a fantastic World Cup and fell short again, which is unfortunate. We played good cricket in different patches. We came off a good Ireland series leading into an England series that we knew was going to be quite difficult and with a lot of new players coming in, it was always going to be challenging."

"It didn't go the way we wanted it to, but you take a lot of learnings out of that. As a team, we are on the right stepping blocks, especially leading into a World Cup next year. We took a lot of positives from the England series into the Commonwealth, and we fell a little bit short, but we played fantastic cricket, and it was just key moments we missed out on."

"We are not where we want to be at the moment, but we are on the right path. We've got a lot of girls that are coming in so it can only be leading to good things as a team that's hosting a World Cup next year," added Chloe.