Having looked as if they’ve played with their feet in cement, the Proteas now view tackling England in the semifinals of the T20 World Cup as an opportunity to free themselves and put on their dancing shoes. That sense of freedom can arise in the type of situation South Africa face on Friday. “ England are a quality side, we’ve lost many semifinals to them. They play an explosive, very attacking brand of cricket,” Laura Wolvaardt remarked after South Africa secured their spot in the final four with a nervy 10-wicket victory over Bangladesh on Tuesday night. England displayed all of that aggression, explosiveness and experience in their record 114-run win over Pakistan a few hours before the Proteas took to Newlands in Cape Town. Their 213/5 was the highest for a T20 World Cup match and featured a 100-run partnership for the fifth wicket between Nat Sciver-Brunt and Amy Jones that came off only 46 balls. The host nation have stumbled into the semifinals, battling nerves in the first match and again on Tuesday. They’ve also failed to fire according to their stated brand and their fielding was at times shambolic against Bangladesh. But here they are, still in with a chance of doing something special and because of that, they may be freed to play the way they want. “If anything, it probably gives us a lot more freedom to know we have to put a lot of runs on the board early and get off to better starts than we did,” Wolvaardt said. They were certainly tense for large parts of Tuesday's match. In the field, they didn’t back up some outstanding bowling, with catches being dropped and extra runs being given to the Bangladeshis via overthrows and misfields. It looked almost as if they wanted it too much. The energy was good — Nadine de Klerk took a fine jumping catch at mid-on to help get rid of Murshida Khatun, they dived around and threw themselves at the ball — but the execution lacked accuracy. “That was not our best fielding performance. In the first game we fielded pretty well in front of the same crowd at the same ground. It wasn’t crowd pressure. “We need to keep being really positive, not get down on ourselves after making one mistake, and focus on the next ball. ” Fortunately, Marizanne Kapp, Shabnim Ismail, Ayabonga Khaka and Nonkululeko Mlaba hit the stumps often enough to atone for the fielding errors. “We have to take all the chances we get against England because they are a very aggressive unit. It’s about keeping an attacking mindset in the field, to keep attacking the ball and not hesitating,” Wolvaardt said. The batting too, cannot be timid, something Wolvaardt felt she and opening partner Tazmin Brits were guilty of at the start of the run chase. “We made it look a lot harder than it was in the first 10 overs. We struggled to find our timing, we lost our shape, but after that drinks break we said we had 10 wickets in hand, we needed to be positive, brave and not leave it until the last over. We need to have that mindset from the start next time. ” Wolvaardt notched a fifth T20 International half-century, eventually finishing on 66 not out off 56 balls and was playing some trademark cover drives by the end. She was pleased to finally deliver a performance more in keeping with the standards she has set for herself. Asked what type of discussions have taken place to help arrest her recent slump, she replied: “What kind of conversations haven’t I been having? If anything, I’ve been overthinking it and speaking to too many people. It’s been a very frustrating tournament for me. ” Yet here she and the Proteas are, in a semifinal of a home World Cup, the first time any South African team has managed that in an ICC tournament in this country. It's the fifth time the Proteas have qualified for a World Cup semifinal — the third occasion they have done so in the T20 competition — and for the fourth time it is England they face. The last occasion was a debacle in the 50-over event in New Zealand last year, where South Africa dropped a number of catches and couldn’t get going with the bat. “Our last semifinal in the 50-over tournament was a total mental lapse, we had our worst game in the tournament in that game — after a good tournament up to that point. We need to have a lot of discussions about how to stay mentally strong, we have the talent and skill, it's a mental game in that semifinal,” said Wolvaardt. .