Moment of truth for Proteas

In explaining her captaincy style, Laura Wolvaardt has frequently emphasised how her calm disposition on the field rubs off on her teammates.

On the eve of arguably the most important match of her career, she reiterated that point — jokingly claiming she’d leave the passionate pre-game speech ahead of today’s World Cup final against India to head coach Mandla Mashimbyi.

“He normally does the really inspirational stuff — the carrying your country type of thing — and then I’ll come in with a little ‘stay calm girls’ at the end,” the skipper quipped.

In what is certain to be a frenzied atmosphere, in front of 45,000 spectators at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai, Wolvaardt’s serenity will be almost as valuable as the runs she has to score.

Although they’ve played in two finals, Wolvaardt acknowledged that most of the South African players would not have endured an environment like the one they will encounter today.

Staying calm important

“There’ll be a lot of eyeballs on the game, added pressure, and probably pretty batting-friendly conditions, so it might be high-scoring. Which is why staying calm is really important,” she said.

“It may feel like there is a lot happening, with boundaries and the crowd, the noise ... and we need to stay as grounded as possible, and as focussed as we can on the moment and what we need to do.”

After their men failed to secure the title in 2023 on home soil, Harmanpreet Kaur’s team carry the hopes of that cricket-mad nation. “As far as the home World Cup is concerned, there are always ups and downs emotionally because it’s tough,” the Indian captain admitted.

Enormous economic resources have been poured into women’s cricket in India, especially in the last five years, with the Women’s Premier League starting to do for the women’s game what the IPL has done for the men.

But that financial support has created more expectation too, and ahead of this year’s tournament, India were widely regarded as second favourites behind Australia. Until the semifinal, they hadn’t played like they were worthy of that status.

Intimidating crowd

The Proteas are aware that while the crowd might be intimidating, they can also be turned quickly should the matters not be going in the home-team’s favour.

Silence will definitely be the Proteas’ friend today.

It’s been a bumpy ride for both sides to reach the tournament showpiece.

India lost three matches in a row, including to South Africa in the round-robin phase. None of those was a blow out, but there have been concerns about the bowling, particularly at the death, and the batting which, until the semifinal against Australia, had been too reliant on Smriti Mandhana.

Meanwhile, South Africa started and ended the league phase with two batting implosions and, in between, rode on the coat-tails of some late order heroics from Nadine De Klerk and Chloe Tryon, and steadiness with the ball from Nonkululeko Mlaba, to secure a play-off spot with two matches to spare.

As with any final, there’s not much to be read into what’s gone before. “We won’t be looking into our group game against them,” said Wolvaardt.

Brilliance of Wolvaardt, Kaap

The quality of fielding from both teams has been substandard — India more so than South Africa over the course of the tournament. That could make the difference today, with the Proteas wanting to avoid dropping four catches like they did in their semifinal.

As comprehensive as the outcome was on Wednesday against England, thanks mainly to the brilliance of Wolvaardt and Marizanne Kapp, the Proteas will be aware that it was a far from flawless performance.

Knowing that they can and most likely must play better than they did in that match, will help them focus better today.

“At the end of the day it is just a game of cricket, and whichever team is able to do the basics for longer throughout the game, and hold their nerve, will go a long way [towards winning],” said Wolvaardt.