A final too far for the Proteas Women

Life always leaves you hankering after more — the perfect home, a bigger car, more clothes, another helping of the stuff you love.

Sport is the same. Spurred on by what the romantics called “divine discontent”, we invariably want the teams we support to go one better: group stage wins segue into a desire for knockout wins.

Once knockout wins have been achieved, we hope for an appearance in the final. Once in the final, only victory will do.

South Africa’s women cricketers, who returned this week from their appearance in the World Cup final in Mumbai on Sunday, probably did better in the tournament than either they or their fans had a right to expect. This would be cold comfort to the players, who were devastated by their 55-run defeat at the hands of the host nation.

But consider this.

At the start of the tournament Laura Wolvaardt’s side were bowled out by England for 69, Sinalo Jafta top-scoring with 22. It wasn’t the best way to begin a World Cup in which the team had high hopes of excelling. Then again, best get your wobbles out of the way early: things can only get better.

England’s 10-wicket win focused the collective mind. A slip-up from here on would prove costly. The South Africans went about their business with consistent aplomb: a run of five victories (including one against India) followed, and though there was a hiccup against the tournament favourites, Australia, they put their nightmare against England well and truly behind them.

Every international sporting tournament has its own internal dynamics. It works in “mysterious ways”. Such mystery revealed itself in South Africa’s semifinal opponents, England — a match that gave South Africa an opportunity to play better than they did in the opener.

We see in retrospect that this was South Africa’s final, though we didn’t know it at the time. England’s captain, Nat Sciver-Brunt, won the toss and asked South Africa to bat and the Proteas scored an impressive 319 runs.

South Africa’s performance didn’t always look quite so daunting. When Annerie Dercksen was out for four off the first ball of the 41st over, for instance, the South African total was 202/6, respectable but in no way definitive.

After Dercksen’s dismissal, the South Africans made merry. They scored 117 runs in nine overs and five balls to post a very tricky total for England.

Run-getter in chief was Wolvaardt. After reaching her century, she ran amok. The first 50 runs of her 89-run partnership with Dercksen’s replacement, Chloe Tryon, came off 30 balls. Their partnership overall took fractionally fewer than eight overs. Here England lost the match.

Wolvaardt finished with 169. It was a great innings not only in the women’s game but in one-day cricket full stop. Centuries for the men in World Cup semifinals, for example, are as rare as a Highveld hailstorm in winter.

There was Herschelle Gibbs’s 101 in a Super Six match at Edgbaston against Australia in 1999 and David Miller’s 101 against Australia at Eden Gardens in 2023; both in a losing cause.

Wolvaardt’s innings was a sublimely paced one of culture and calm, with 92 runs in boundaries, it established the foundations for the win against England. The two next-highest scores — and this illustrates how far the South African skipper towers over her teammates — were Tazmin Brits’s 45 and Marizanne Kapp’s 42.

With England now chasing, enter Kapp. She bowled a challenging line into what used to be called the “corridor of uncertainty” to take five for 20, helping to restrict England to 194, and South Africa won by 125 runs.

The semifinal was as one-sided as South Africa’s opening fixture had been. One headline writer compared England’s batting in the semifinal to that of “headless chickens”. Who needs opponents when you have folk in the media as insensitive as that?

One headline writer compared England’s batting in the semifinal to that of ‘headless chickens’. Who needs opponents when you have folk in the media as insensitive as that?

India, meanwhile, had a semifinal against Australia to contend with, a daunting prospect after the Aussies posted 338 batting first. Incredibly, it wasn’t enough. Thanks in the main to Harmanpreet Kaur’s 89 and 127 not out by Jemimah Rodrigues, the Indians got home by five wickets with nine balls to spare.

India’s semifinal win kept them in Mumbai for the final, with South Africa having to travel from Guwahati, in the far east of the country. Such are the logistical challenges of World Cups away from home.

In the final, South Africa also needed to contend with a partisan home crowd at the DY Patil Stadium, and alien conditions. And let’s not forget: the fact of simply finding yourself in a final can bend the most straight-ahead brain.

Some South Africans didn’t cope. Anneke Bosch looked tentative in the field and with a bat in her hands. Ayabonga Khaka, though she took three wickets in India’s first-innings 298, wasn’t backing up and so was run out at the end.

Such timidity and lack of match awareness cost South Africa dearly. They had beaten India in the round-robin stage of the tournament with brave cricket and attacking field placings.

Come the final, though, they reverted to safe cricket with conservative field placings and predictable bowling changes. Contrast Indian captain Kaur’s slick perming of her bowlers, with seven used, with that of Wolvaardt’s. Or the fact that the Indian field placings seemed to be that much more spot on.

This is not the time for finger-pointing and facile recrimination, however. Wolvaardt’s team astonished everyone, including possibly themselves, by reaching a final in conditions that were thoroughly alien. Though they never looked like winning the final, they also didn’t look like they would lose it until Wolvaardt went out for a cultured 101.

But in South Africa’s chase of India’s competitive target she was given too little help. She batted for nearly two hours longer than the batter who occupied the crease for the next longest — Brits, who batted for 40 minutes for her 23. You can’t build partnerships that way. And the only way you’re going to chase down a total of just under 300 is by doing so together.

So what awaits South Africa’s women cricketers once the dust has settled? Women’s cricket desperately needs more players. The national team is probably selected from hundreds rather than thousands of cricketers. And they need to play more matches at top level, an onerous task for Cricket South Africa (CSA), with more A-level tours and more international exposure at all levels of the game.

If they played in more high-profile events, the sport would be more attractive to young women. In England, every men’s fixture in The Hundred, its new limited-overs competition, is preceded by a women’s match. As a fan, you buy one ticket and have access to both. The same could be done before men’s fixtures in the SA20. It would do the women’s game in this country the world of good.

The team will get harder, cannier, better. The powerful Dercksen looks like a prospect of note and should probably bat higher than she does. Nonkululeko Mlaba, the left-arm spinner, took 13 wickets in the competition and was among the leading wicket-takers. She has 10 good years of international cricket left in her.

But the side looks a little unbalanced. The batting is made up almost entirely of right-handers. Tryon might bowl left-arm spin, but she bats right-handed.

CSA should begin a nationwide search for a couple of left-handed batters. Without them, the opposition bowlers can sit on a line and vary length accordingly. Right-left batting combinations often throw fielding sides out of kilter. In the final on Sunday night it was notable how Indian left-hander Smriti Mandhana was able to take advantage of, say, Kapp’s failure to adjust her line.

Greater domestic depth in the women’s game will bring a greater range of players from whom to select. Throughout this World Cup it was fascinating to note the absence of women with English surnames in the Proteas. Where is the Jonty Rhodes or the Graeme Smith of the women’s game?

Do the posh girls’ schools consider women’s cricket beneath them? Could they not care less? If the Springboks have shown us anything, it’s that the national rugby team is stronger for representing all demographics, all classes, all interest groups. The women’s game needs to spread itself wider. From a broader base will a World Cup-winning side come.