Despite falling at the last hurdle, Proteas captain Laura Wolvaardt was full of praise for her team for their all-round effort at the Women’s Cricket World Cup, after they were handed a 52-run defeat against hosts India in the final in Mumbai yesterday.

“I couldn’t be prouder of this team for the campaign that we’ve had. We’ve played some brilliant cricket throughout,” Wolvaardt said after the match.

“We were outplayed today. I think India played fantastically well, and it’s unfortunate to be on the losing side, but I think we’ll definitely grow from this as a group.”

Wolvaardt leads from the front

Set a target of 299 runs to win, in search of the nation’s first limited overs Cricket World Cup title, Wolvaardt carried the SA team’s batting lineup.

The skipper stuck around for most of the innings, hitting 101 runs off 98 balls as she guided her team to 246.

Spin bowler Deepti Sharma spearheaded India’s bowling attack, taking 5/29 as the hosts secured victory with more than four overs to spare.

Bouncing back

Having lost in thumping defeats to England and Australia in the league stage of the tournament, Wolvaardt was delighted with the way her team bounced back, becoming the first SA senior side to reach a Cricket World Cup final in the 50-over format.

“We did so well to put those couple of bad games behind us. We were either really good or really bad, but thankfully, there was a lot more really good throughout this tournament,” said the skipper, who made 541 runs in nine games to finish well clear at the top of the run-scoring charts at the quadrennial showpiece.

“We’ve had so many different players standing up, and it was an amazing tournament for so many different players. I’m just proud of the resilience we showed to get all the way to the final.”

This article was first published by The Citizen.

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