Unsatisfied Pakistan and South Africa are still searching for a performance

Round three of the Women's World Cup kicks off with a vital game for both sides at Mount Maunganui

It is an uncomfortable truth given the women's game is focusing on growth, but an eight-team, single group World Cup does at least crank up the jeopardy from an early stage in the competition.

That is largely because with Australia expected to run away with things at the top, the remaining seven places and the order of them is largely up for grabs.

Only just over a week into the tournament and there are only three unbeaten sides and one of those, South Africa, have only completed a single match.

This may only be game nine and the start of round three in the 2022 tournament, but it feels like a vital game for both The Proteas and Pakistan.

If opening matches of major tournaments are all about feeling your way into things, then South Africa did just that with a nervy win over Bangladesh last weekend.

It was an unconvincing victory over the tournament debutants, who on 166 for 6 with 42 needed might have been considered the favourites. Ritu Moni and captain Nigar Sultana's departure firmly changed the momentum of the contest.

The grand question for South Africa is whether opener Lizelle Lee will be available to return, after completing her seven-day mandatory period in quarantine.

^{Lizelle Lee (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)}

"It's great to have Lizelle back here," said Chloe Tyron. "I know she'd been working really hard back home. So it's exciting to have her again the group, she's a world-class player. We just have to see if she's going to play but yeah, it's just really exciting to have her here and be part of the squad."

On the 32-run win over Bangladesh, she added: "It was definitely under par. We did discuss thoroughly, that we weren't happy with our batting performance. 

"Yeah, we didn't take responsibility up the order and we felt that we just needed the partnerships, and we didn't do that enough. 

"And, yeah, we just had to find ways to get off strike and I felt that we struggled with that quite a bit. 

"So we definitely worked on that after having those conversations going to next sessions of making sure we kind of finding ways - as we looked at the wicket it was a little bit slow but we still have to try to kind of find a way and try and look to make 270 plus on these wickets.

"[There are] definitely a lot of pointers that we got on in the last game but I think we kind of worked on quite a bit of that at training."

Courtesy of 107-run and seven-wicket defeats to India and Australia - arguably the leading tournament contenders - Pakistan sit bottom of the table after two games.

They did give India a scare in that first game at Bay Oval but they were blown away by the Aussies.

Bismah Maroof (Marty Melville/Getty Images)

The battle to avoid the wooden spoon looks set to be decided early next week in the clash with Bangladesh and there is little doubt there is plenty to work on - particularly in the batting department.

"It's more around decision making," said coach David Hemp. "So we certainly [have] got players that are capable of batting but that is a challenge because you’ve got the new ball, the new ball moves. 

"We had 14 games last year but when you're playing a series of three games, then you don't play for two or three months. 

"You work in between on facing the new ball and what does it mean to face a new ball. 

"But again, conditions have varied from grounds that we played at - so again, it's a new challenge. So it's dealing with all those things that go into batsmanship. 

"So conversations are particularly around the tempo of an innings and how you actually construct the innings.

"I think some of our players are working through that too – knowing what their games are and the strengths of their games, but then how to adapt those strategies on certain wickets against certain types of bowlers. Because obviously, we’ve got to take that into consideration."