Frustrating to lose wickets to part-timer; SA are doing right to make three finals: Wolvaardt

Navi Mumbai, Nov 3 (PTI) South Africa captain Laura Wolvaardt expressed her frustration of losing two wickets to part-timer Shafali Verma in the Women's World Cup summit showdown against India but asserted that the Proteas are doing things right domestically to make three ICC finals in a row.

Having lost both the T20 World Cup finals in 2023 (to Australia) and 2024 (to New Zealand), South Africa finished on the wrong side of the result again as India ended their long wait for a world title here on Sunday.

South Africa were on track chasing 299 but Shafali's twin strikes to dismiss key batters Sune Luus (25) and Marizanne Kapp (4) broke the back of their chase.

"Yeah, didn't really expect her to bowl much today so a bit of a surprise factor from them. She just kind of bowled front of the hand and really slow and was able to pick up a couple of wickets," Wolvaardt told the media after the match.

"In a World Cup final you don't want to lose wickets to a part-time bowler. But frustrating that she was able to pick up two, two big ones as well, and yeah, then almost had to own the side of caution to not give her any more wickets." "She bowled pretty well. Frustrating I guess because it's not really the person you plan for," she added.

Wolvaardt said women's cricket in her country is on the rise.

"After that first one at Newlands (vs Australia), we had domestic contracts introduced (and) that's really big for our depth as a team. The last one (vs New Zealand) just made us sort of a bigger name in cricket I guess," she said.

"We're the team that consistently is making finals now, whereas before it was maybe like a one-time thing so I'm really proud that we're able to reach three in a row. It shows that we're doing something right domestically and from a squad perspective, consistency wise," she added.

On personal front, Wolvaardt finished the tournament with 571 runs in nine matches at 71.37, including centuries in the semifinal and final and three half-centuries.

"My ODI cricket has sort of come a long way in this tournament. To win games you've got to be nice and positive and nice and aggressive and I've really tried to sort of explore that a bit in this tournament," she said.

"It hasn't been my best year in ODI cricket, I was maybe a bit too conservative or one dimensional, so really happy with the different options that I was able to bring in throughout this tournament." Wolvaardt said her side was in the chase for a long time against India.

"We were in the chase for a very long time. We were pretty neck and neck with them. When they showed the updates on the scoreboard, I thought me and (Annerie) Derksen's partnership was pretty big and I thought we were going to take it through to the end," she said. PTI DDV DDV AH AH