Wolvaardt: One of the best wins of my career
Media release
Laura Wolvaardt hailed one of the greatest wins of her career and in Proteas history as South Africa qualified for the final of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 at the expense of reigning champions Australia.
Wolvaardt (42) and Anneke Bosch (74 not out) put on 96 for the second wicket as South Africa chased down Australia’s 134 with time to spare to book their place in the final for the second tournament running.
It came after a fine performance from their bowlers to restrict Australia, with Wolvaardt delighted to find the solution against an Australian team that were looking to make it four titles in a row.
She said: “I think this is one of the best wins of my cricketing career for sure. A couple of other girls have said it as well.
“I think that was such an amazing chase. The bowlers were excellent.
“It's been a good year for us. I think it's been a real collective group effort. Obviously with them being the side that they are, I'm always wondering. You're always looking at ways to sort of find a bit of a weakness. Maybe spend a bit more time analysing them than other teams.
“I'm glad some of the plans worked today. And I felt like our bowlers did excellently to restrict them. We didn't have the best first two overs of the game. And then Taz (Tazmin Brits) and I just had a chat in the middle and said we have to get ahead of this very early. Then Anneke played her role perfectly. I think she just needs to give us that sort of kick in the innings from over six to 12. And that's exactly what she did today.”
Wolvaardt and Bosch took the game to Australia from the off in the chase, with their 96-run stand coming off just 65 balls.
By the time the captain departed, the win was almost wrapped up, with Bosch seeing the team home in the final overs to earn Player of the Match honours.
She added: “My heart is racing. It was quite tough out there but I'm really glad we could get over the line and that I could finally contribute with some runs. I just had to play what the conditions allowed and stick to what's in your mind.
“It means a lot. I can't really describe it but we knew we were capable of it and we had a pretty good tournament so far coming into this game and we were quite confident.”
For Australia, this first loss of the tournament ends their hopes of winning the Women’s T20 World Cup for an unprecedented fourth time in a row.
Skipper Tahlia McGrath, leading the side in the absence of Alyssa Healy, admitted that they were beaten by the better side on the night in Dubai.
She said: “It's going to be pretty hard to take. We just didn't really show up tonight. You can't afford to do that in tournaments like this. Full credit to South Africa. They outplayed us tonight.
“We've had this World Cup in our minds for a very long time now. We worked really hard over the off-season, fine-tuning some things. We really were prepped coming into here. It felt like we left no stone unturned. We just didn't show up on the night.
“We lost the toss, had to bat first on that pitch. We found it quite tricky. South Africa bowled really well. They took the pace off nicely, made it hard for us to take risks.
“At the halfway mark there, we thought maybe 140-150 was par. We mis-executed a little bit. We were just off our best and got punished. We tried to wrestle the momentum back. We just kept saying a couple of wickets, a couple of overs, and we'll swing it back. But unfortunately we couldn't do that.”
ENDS