New Delhi: South Africa needed to go where they had never gone before. Laura Wolvaardt needed to carry forward the momentum and conjure a semi-final special. Marizanne Kapp had to bowl with the heat that had eluded her in the tournament so far.
In a grudge-match against England, all of the above happened and South Africa exorcised the ghosts that spooked them in the tournament opener.
It’s not often that you see a memorable knock and a memorable bowling spell in the same match but Wolvaardt and Kapp delivered. They made sure that they buried the memories of the 69 all out and the eventual 10-wicket defeat and staged a turnaround in the semi-final with a 125-run win to lock in their first-ever ODI World Cup final.
Wolvaardt notched up one of the greatest innings in a knockout game with a whirlwind 169 off 143. Her first century in a World Cup, her knock was the third highest score in a knockout behind Harmanpreet Kaur’s 171* vs Australia, 2017 and Alyssa Healy’s 170 vs England, 2022. It was also the second-highest individual score by a captain in a World Cup match behind 229* runs by Belinda Clark against Denmark in the 1997 edition.
Tazmin Brits (45), with a string of low scores behind her, was looking nervy but Wolvaardt came into her own in the opening partnership of 116 runs. The half-volleys, the width on offer – Wolvaardt cashed on it early to set the tempo. She hit 20 boundaries and four sixes during her stay.
At no point did the South Africans let the momentum slip and their strike rotation was efficient in the middle overs. After Brits’ dismissal in the 23rd over, Kapp (42) stepped up with the bat as she stitched a 72-run partnership with Wolvaardt.
South Africa’s middle-order is power packed and after the strong opening and middle overs, they ensured a stirring finish to the innings. Wolvaardt stitched yet another match-winning partnership of 89 runs with Cloe Tryon (33*) to ensure a finish so strong that their innings progression peaked with 11.70 runs an over in the last ten. After Wolvaardt’s dismissal in the 48th over, Nadine de Klerk (11*) and Tryon put the cherry on the top of the mammoth total.
The silver lining for England was their champion bowler Sophie Ecclestone, who was nursing a shoulder injury, but returned with 4/44 – dismissing Brits, Anneke Bosch (0), Kapp, Annerie Dercksen (4),
Kapp it off
Kapp, in her fifth and probably last World Cup, wasn’t ending this tournament without a fight. Under the overcast conditions, the all-rounder bowled a spell to remember (5/20), quite literally swallowing the English batting order.
England needed a record chase of 320 but with Amy Jones and Heather Knight dismissed for a duck in the first over, South Africa were on top. Ayobhanga Khaka joined Kapp’s party with Tammy Beaumont’s wicket in the next.
When a scoreboard reads 1/3 in the second over, very few teams manage to crawl out of that hole. It was no different for England. Nat Sciver-Brunt (64) and Alice Capsey (50), stitched a 107-run partnership to get England back on track but it needed much, much more to combat one hell of a knock and one hell of a spell.
Kapp, then, added three more to the tally – Sciver-Brunt, Danielle Wyatt-Hodge (34) and Charlotte Dean (0) – to finish with a five-wicket haul. Nonkululeko Mlaba and de Klerk picked up a wicket apiece.
