Sports
Rampant Australia stand in South Africa’s path to glory
It isn’t often that bits of paper stuck to windows are worth quoting, but these are extraordinary times. “Sold out,” read the signs on the ticket booths at Newlands on Saturday afternoon – more than 24 hours before South Africa will take on Australia in the women’s T20 World Cup final.
Cape Town isn’t a metropolis like Mumbai or London, where there’s a good chance more people than are needed to fill the ground are going about their business in the surrounding streets on any given match day. It also isn’t Melbourne, which although has a population comparable to Cape Town’s also has the MCG, with its exponentially bigger capacity than Newlands, which suffers from the added disadvantage of being hemmed in by concrete neighbours on all sides. Unless you live or work nearby, getting there is difficult.
But Saturday morning produced queues outside Newlands, that snaked many metres down the pavement to the end of the block, of aspirant spectators for today’s showdown. If you know South Africans and their idea of sport worth paying money to watch, especially here in the leafy, genteel heart of the patriarchy, you know they wouldn’t ordinarily spend a weekend morning waiting patiently in the summer sun trying to buy access to a game unless it is to be played by men.
The lines wouldn’t have formed had South Africa not earned an unlikely but deserved victory over England in their semi-final at the same ground on Friday. That made Sune Luus’ team the first senior side from her country, men or women, to reach a World Cup final in any format.
Like making it to Newlands, getting to the decider hasn’t been simple for the South Africans. They shambled to two defeats in their four group games, putting in performances that would have buried them had they played like that in one more match. Mostly, their batters couldn’t match their bowlers. On Friday, bat met ball on something like equal terms and the result was astounding. Having scored a decent 164/4 – comfortably their highest total in their last seven T20Is in which they have batted first – South Africa took all eight England wickets to fall for 100 runs and won by six runs.
Their opponents on Sunday couldn’t have taken a more different route to the final. Australia were on auto-pilot throughout the group stage, where they never looked like losing. Only in their semi were they stretched. They made a serious 172/4, which India came within five runs of overhauling.
The wider narrative tells a similar story. Before Friday, South Africa had known the disappointment of five failed white-ball semifinals. There have been 19 women’s global tournaments and the Aussies have been to the final in 12 of them. Or maybe 13: there was no final in the first two ODI World Cups, in 1973 and 1978, which were decided on points. But England and Australia were the only unbeaten teams going into the last match in 1978. So it is considered a de facto final. Of those 13 tournaments, Australia have won 12. If David versus Goliath needs a reboot to bring it up to speed with an age in which women are taken more seriously in every sphere of life – and the gods know it does – this match fits the template.
The key contest looks likely to be Australia’s batters against South Africa’s pace bowlers, but the way the home side’s batters dealt with England’s crack attack says that theory could be in for a shake-up. Suddenly Tamzin Brits is five runs ahead of Alyssa Healy as the tournament’s highest remaining run-scorer, albeit from one fewer innings. But Ash Gardner is the leading wicket-taker left in the competition and no-one has a better economy rate than Grace Harris.
Only the stupid money would not be on Australia to clinch another title. They have too many threats in too many places, who have delivered accordingly, not to be outright favourites. Thing is, much the same could have been said about England before the semi-final. They encountered a South Africa team who had finally got over themselves well enough to play properly.
A jam-packed Newlands will be willing them to do so one more time with feeling on Sunday. Men might form most of the crowd, as they have in the past. The difference this time is that they won’t only watch a cricket match, or even a cricket match played by women. They will attend history in the making, and they will hope as hard as they dare, from the bottom of their hoary, hairy hearts, that they are on the side of the team who write it.
South Africa Possible XI: Laura Wolvaardt, Tazmin Brits, Marizanne Kapp, Sune Luus (capt), Chloe Tryon, Anneke Bosch, Nadine de Klerk, Sinalo Jafta, Shabnim Ismail, Ayabonga Khaka, Nonkululeko Mlaba
Australia Possible XI: Alyssa Healy, Beth Mooney, Meg Lanning (capt), Ashleigh Gardner, Grace Harris, Ellyse Perry, Tahlia McGrath, Georgia Wareham, Jess Jonassen, Megan Schutt, Darcie Brown
The first truly heavyweight clash of this expanded T20 World Cup format comes freighted with both history and subplots. A rematch of the 2010 World T20 final at Kensington Oval, the match pits Jos Buttler’s defending champions – who are aiming to become the first team to retain the trophy – against the Australian winning machine, victors at the 2021 edition and current world title-holders in Test and ODI cricket. And that’s before you throw in the Ashes for afters.
Already there is added pressure on England, after the rain in Bridgetown led to a share of the points in their opener against Scotland (and that having conceded 90 runs from 10 overs without taking a wicket in a tepid bowling display). Lose to their oldest rivals and it will leave their Super 8 prospects open to being waylaid by the perils of net run-rate calculations, or worse.
The Scotland match was the third abandonment in five suffered by England, after a rain-affected home series against Pakistan, which has clearly hampered their readiness for this campaign after almost six months without playing T20 together. It does not take much for a side to click in this format – and England looked in decent shape when they did get on the field against Pakistan – but Buttler will be anxious for things to go their way on Saturday, if only to avoid further questions referencing the team’s disastrous ODI World Cup defence last year.
Australia, under the laidback leadership of Mitchell Marsh would love nothing more than to add to the English sense of jeopardy – having helped bundle them out of the tournament in India on the way to taking the crown. Their head to head record is less impressive in T20 however, with England having won six of the last seven completed encounters, as well as that 2010 final.
Despite a wobble with the bat, Australia avoided mishap against Oman earlier in the week, the experience of David Warner and Marcus Stoinis shining through in difficult batting conditions. Surfaces in the Caribbean – not to mention those games staged in the USA – have already had teams scratching their heads; rather than the “slug-fest” England had prepared for, following a high-scoring tour of the Caribbean in December, it looks as if boxing smart may be the way to go.
Speaking of Warner, this could be the last time he faces up against England in national colours – and another match-winning contribution would likely reduce the chances of them meeting again in the knockouts. On the other side of the card is Jofra Archer, fresh from an emotional maiden outing at Kensington Oval and ready to take on Australia for the first time in any format since 2020. Can Mark Wood fire up England’s campaign, as he did during last summer’s Ashes? Will Pat Cummins be back to harass the old enemy once again? Seconds out, it’s almost time to rumble.
Cummins is set to return after being rested for the Oman game, which saw Mitchell Starc leave the field with cramp. Starc is understood to be fine and could keep his place – which would likely see Nathan Ellis miss out. Marsh is still not fit to bowl, with Australia likely to continue with the allrounder combination of Stoinis and Maxwell to give them cover.
Australia (probable XI): David Warner, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh (capt), Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Josh Inglis (wk), Tim David, Pat Cummins, Nathan Ellis/Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood
The one change England may consider is Reece Topley coming in for Wood, with the expectation that there will be some rotation among the seamers through the course of the tournament.
England (probable XI): Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (capt & wk), Will Jacks, Jonny Bairstow, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Chris Jordan, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Reece Topley/Mark Wood
[Cricinfo]
Once is coincidence, twice is a clue, and three times is proof.
To paraphrase Agatha Christie, that is the narrative around South Africa’s meeting with Netherlands at this T20 World Cup.
The Dutch beat South Africa at the 2022 tournament and ended their semi-final hopes in a match where South Africa appeared to be sleep walking, and then beat them again at the 2023 ODI World Cup, where they exposed South Africa’s vulnerability in the chase. If they to do the treble, not only will Netherlands take the lead in Group D, but they will offer conclusive evidence of the threat they pose to Full Members, especially South Africa.
Of course, it will take some doing after South Africa’s opening performance against Sri Lanka, where they reduced their opposition to their lowest T20I total and chased it down in fairly straightforward fashion thanks to the most stable middle-order of their white-ball era. In Aiden Markram, Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller, South Africa have bankers and big-hitters and, for this match, they also have the advantage of experience. They’ve already played at Eisenhower Park, and have first-hand knowledge that run-scoring doesn’t come easily;Klassen said they are prepared to use their “cricket brains” and play “smarter cricket”.
But the conditions could be good news for Netherlands, who are not naturally a line-up of big hitters and build their innings on a foundation of turning ones into twos. In other words, they tend to take a slightly more conservative approach to batting, which may work well here, but they’ll be wary of the uneven bounce of the surface and will have to come up with plans to counterattack especially against South Africa’s seamers. Their own bowlers were exemplary in Dallas and will look to build on that performance against a line-up that will likely be more proactive than Nepal’s, but who they have managed to keep quiet not once, but twice in the past. Third time’s the charm, they say.
Anrich Nortje’s stunning return to form against Sri Lanka means South Africa may not have to tinker with the bowling combination, and Gerald Coetzee and Tabraiz Shamsi may have to wait their turns to get a game. The batting line-up should be unchanged, with no space for Ryan Rickelton yet.
South Africa: Quinton de Kock (wk), Reeza Hendricks, Aiden Markam, Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), David Miller, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Ottneil Baartman, Anrich Nortje
Conditions in New York may tempt Netherlands to include an extra seamer and they have Kyle Klein in their squad. But it could come at the expense of a shortened batting line-up and they may not want to risk that.
Netherlands: Michael Levitt, Max O’Dowd, Vikramjit Singh, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Scott Edwards (capt, wk), Bas de Leede, Teja Nidamanuru, Logan van Beek, Tim Pringle, Paul van Meekeren, Vivian Kingma
[Cricinfo]
Nuwan Thushara’s last over brought Sri Lanka screaming back into the match,as he first bowled Rishad Hossain, and then nailed Taskin Ahmed in front of the stumps with a pinpoint swinging yorker. This left Bangladesh eight wickets down, with 12 runs still to get.
However, the experienced Mahmudullah was at the crease for Bangladesh, and despite some further nervy moments, pushed Bangladesh across the line off the last ball of the 19th over.
But this was a match chiefly decided by Bangladesh’s own outstanding bowling. Mustafizur Rahman was the best among them, using shorter lengths and his cutters efficiently, to claim figures of 3 for 17. Rishad Hossain’s three-for through the middle overs also kept Sri Lanka quiet.
Mustafizur was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s downward spiral through the middle overs, which culminated in a crash-and-burn end. Ultimately, their inability to find boundaries, or even rotate strike against good Bangladesh bowling resulted in their downfall. A score of 125 for 9 always seemed poor on a decent pitch, even if their bowlers made a match of it in the end.
Brief scores:
Bangladesh 125 for 8 in 19 overs (Towhid Hridoy 40, Litton Das 36; Dhanajaya de Silva 1-11, Nuwan Thushara 4-18, Wanidu Hasaranga 2-32, Matheesha Pathirana 1-27) beat Sri Lanka124 for 9 in 20 overs (Pathum Nissanka 47, Dhananjaya de Silva 21; Tanzim Hasan Sakib 1-24, Taskin Ahmed 2-25, Mustafizur Rahman 3-17, Rishad Hossain 3-22) by two wickets
[Cricinfo]
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