South Africa’s win was the fifth-highest chase in Women’s World Cup history. ©Getty
Deepti Sharma unwisely dabbed at an offering from Marizanne Kapp that, left alone, might have been a legside wide. Instead, as revealed by Ultra Edge, bat scratched ball.
Sinalo Jafta moved to her right with silky swiftness to take the catch, reducing India to 102/6 after 26 overs, the turning point of the home side’s World Cup match against South Africa in Visakhapatnam on Thursday.
As in the moment when it all stopped going right for the South Africans. Until then, Nonkululeko Mlaba and Chloe Tryon had made the unbeaten home side look eminently beatable by taking 4/25 in the eight overs they had bowled between them.
That a pair of African spinners could crack the top six of an Asian side is worth its own story. At least, it would have been had the match’s momentum kept moving in that direction. It did not.
India’s runrate at that point was 3.92. The last 24 overs of their innings brought 149 runs at 6.21 to the over, and the last 10 yielded 98.
What happened? Simply, the South Africans had no answer for Richa Ghosh’s visceral aggression. She used her feet like a matador and swung her bat not with abandon but with targetted violence.
She was unstoppable until she was stopped, by a full toss from Nadine de Klerk that the gizmos said would have been four centimetres below her waist if it had passed her. It didn’t: she met it with a meaty thump and Tryon took the catch at long-on.
Ghosh was gone for 94 off 77. She hit 68 of her runs in fours and sixes. Sixty-eight was also how many runs she scored in front of square, evidence of her emphatic command of the crease.
Amanjot Kaur had scored no runs from the four balls she had faced when Ghosh replaced Deepti. Amanjot dealt with 39 more deliveries and made 13 runs before she misjudged the length of a ball from Tryon and was smartly caught by Sune Luus darting back from mid-off.
But the stand was worth 51. The 36 Ghosh scored off 44 in that partnership paled next to the 48 she hammered off 29 in an effort of 88 off 53 with Sneh Rana.
Fielding teams either flee or fight in the face of an onslaught of those proportions. The South Africans fled. Or might have done had that been an option. That much was clear from the plummet in the standard of their ground fielding. Exemplary in the first half of the innings, it became an embarrassment in the last 10 overs.
It was as if being bowled out for 69 by England in Guwahati on Friday was not the nightmare they thought they had woken from when they beat New Zealand by six wickets in Indore on Monday. For much of the second half of India’s innings it was more like the win over the Kiwis was a good dream. And now it was back to the awful reality.
Richa Ghosh slammed a terrific counter-attacking 94 ©Getty
Having fled rather than fought in the field, Laura Wolvaardt’s team needed to fight with the bat. India’s 251 was far from insurmountable. But it was a taller order than it would have been for a side who had not been battered and bruised by Ghosh’s blast.
On top of that, the Indians returned to the arena shimmering with the good vibrations created by Ghosh. It was their turn to shine in the field, and inside 20 overs they had removed five of South Africa’s top six at the bargain basement cost of 81 runs.
Kranti Gaud shone brightest with her return catch to dismiss Tazmin Brits. Deep in the twists and turns of her follow-through, Gaud found the wherewithal to fling her left hand into the empty space it needed to be at the instant the screaming ball arrived. And to hang on when it did. She had, those trusty gizmos said, 0.5 seconds to get all of that right.
That inflicted the first duck in Tazmin Brits’ career of 42 ODI innings. Lest we forget, she scored four centuries, two of them unbeaten, in her previous five innings. Small wonder her face failed to hide the shock on her face as she strode off the field.
All that said, Wolvaardt kept her team in the hunt with a measured innings that was ended at 70 in the 36th when she was yorked by Gaud. That put paid to a stand of 61 Wolvaardt shared with Tryon. From there, South Africa needed 110 off 85 – hardly impossible. But made improbable by the fact that someone of Ghosh’s intent didn’t seem to be available.
South Africans have become accustomed to the humming engine that is Wolvaardt, who scores runs apparently without raising a sweat or her heart rate. She could be cast as a beardless Hashim Amla, but with better technique.
That kind of cool wasn’t going to win Thursday’s game. This needed heat. And it came to the crease, when Wolvaardt was dismissed, in the unlikely form of De Klerk. She hit her first boundary off the fourth ball she faced, turned through fine leg off Shree Charani for four.
There would be seven more, along with three sixes, before De Klerk dragged South Africa to the last dozen deliveries of the match needing as many runs. By then, she had scored 45 in a stand of 69 off 60 with Tryon, who showed courage to stave off a calf injury before being trapped in front for 49 by Rana.
Having stopped Ghosh, was De Klerk about to steal the glory it seemed the Indian had earned?
De Klerk didn’t need 12 deliveries to answer the question. It took her only half as many. Or, if you like, two – she launched the third ball of the 49th, bowled by Amanjot, over midwicket for six. Two deliveries later she launched a full toss into the night sky high over long-on to complete the fifth-highest successful chase in World Cup history and clinch the match by three wickets.
De Klerk reaped 39 runs off the 15 balls she faced after Tryon was dismissed, when she knew she had only the tail for company. She did so with hope, badge-thumping passion and not a little audacity.
Not even Ghosh holding up play for several minutes to receive medical treatment immediately after De Klerk had hit successive deliveries from Gaud for two sixes and a four in the 47th could derail the smoking South African.
Then, soaked in the sweat produced during her career-best 84 not out off 54, almost three-quarters of them smote in fours and sixes, she told a television interviewer: “I do like being under pressure.”
She likes to fight, she might have said.
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