🏏ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2025: SLW vs ENGW Match.12🏏 - Page 12

Nadine de Klerk | Player of the Match: Yeah, look, at the moment, I'm lost for words. We've done a lot of good things over the last couple of days. Just to finish the game off, try and dig deep, give ourselves the best chance and hopefully this gives a lot of confidence to our crew going forward. I do love being under pressure. I love World Cups as well. And no bigger stage than playing India at home. We knew that we had to be at our very best today. And they got to 250, which is quite a good total. It's great to get over the line, and it just shows that we're capable of hitting the big sides and putting up a massive fight as well. When me and Chloe got together, we knew we just had to take it deep. We always said that I feel like we're a really good side in the back 10 overs. So we just said even if we need 10 rpo in the last 5-6 overs, we've got ourselves to get there. We got a great partnership with Chloe. She took a lot of pressure off me and Laura as well, what a captain's innings. So I think it just all came together. We probably left a little too much towards the back end. I'm really glad it came off today, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of positives going into the next game. I'm quite natural (referring to her six-hitting). I think that is my role within the side, is to come in at number eight and try and put bowlers under pressure and finish off games. Today I had quite a lot of time, so it was just to get myself in. I knew that it looked like a quite good wicket. I knew if I just gave myself a chance, that we were going to end up on the winning side, or at least give ourselves the best chance to finish it off.

Harmanpreet Kaur | India captain: Tough game. Both teams played really well. Even though we collapsed while batting, we still managed to put 250 on the board. In the end, Chloe and de Klerk batted really well, they showed it was a very good pitch and they deserved to win with the way they batted. Richa has always been outstanding for us. She is someone who can always turn the game. And today the way she was hitting, we all were very pleased to see that. She is someone who can always hit those big sixes and get a big total on the board. And I think today she played it really beautifully. Hopefully, she will continue. As a top-order we did not take responsibility and lost too many wickets, we need to go back to the process. We kept losing wickets when we were in the middle. But a lot of learning for us because in the last few games we have been making the same mistake. I think as a group we need to sit and discuss which things can work for us to get a decent total on the board. It's a long tournament. I know today was a tough game for us. But a lot of learning and a lot of positives to see. As you mentioned, we have good games coming up. The important thing is to keep ourselves in a positive frame of mind and keep doing the right things, keep improving day by day.

Laura Wolvaardt | South Africa captain: That was incredible. I don't think I have seen anything like that in all my cricketing career. Nadine played a very very special innings. I am still lost for words. Found ourselves in a bit of pickle early. We have had a lot of conversations after that first game, if we do find ourselves in that position, graft as long as we can. We knew we were ahead of them the whole time, runs wise. They had a really good finish but we thought if we took it deep then we would do something special. She (Nadine) has been hitting the ball like that in the nets, hitting our bowlers all over the park and really glad to see it come off in a game. The temperament she showed as well, batting with the lower order and timing that chase incredibly well. Richa batted incredibly well, we tried to go wide plan to her but it almost looked like she wanted us to do that, she is one of the best batters at the death in the world and it is really hard to control her. 210-220 would have been nice but yeah, I am glad we were able to match with something special as well. Definitely (the spinners bowled well). Our pace bowlers bowled really well, I found pace came on quite nicely and spin was tough, we did really well to restrict them to 250 with a lot of pacers.

India suffer their first loss of the tournament and the focus now shifts to how they respond. Their next challenge? Australia. It doesn’t get tougher than that. Can India bounce back the way South Africa did? We’ll find out on Sunday. There’s plenty more cricket to come before that, so make sure you join us for all the action. Until next time, this is Akshay Maanay signing off on behalf of Abhinand Raghavendran and our scorer Mukesh HS. Goodbye!

What a turnaround this has been from South Africa!

From being bowled out for just 69 in their opening game against England to comfortably beating New Zealand and now holding their nerve against hosts India - this win will do wonders for their confidence. Nadine de Klerk might just have played one of the finest knocks of this World Cup and that’s saying something, because Richa Ghosh’s effort earlier in the day, rescuing India from 102/6 to 251, looked like a match-winning innings at the time. But in the end, it’s Nadine who walks away with the headlines.

It’s a Thriller with all sorts of dramatic twists at every moment. It’s a win for both and a loss for India at the end!

End of over 43

4 runs

NZ-W: 165/4

CRR: 3.83

Sophie Devine

49 (81b 2x4)

Maddy Green

8 (14b)

Fahima Khatun

9-0-37-1

Nishita Akter Nishi

9-0-31-0

Nishita Akter Nishi to Devine, OUT

Sophie Devine b Nishita Akter Nishi 63 (85b 2x4 2x6) SR: 74.11

Nishita gave 14 runs in 3 balls and took the wicket of Sophie Divine.

Hello and welcome to our coverage of Match 12 between Sri Lanka and England in Colombo. If the weather holds, it'll be the first time Sri Lanka take the field in 12 days as their previous match against Australia was washed out at the same venue. It'll also offer a chance to see how big of a force they are at home where they will be playing most of their matches in this tournament. Not that England are going to be too concerned, having lost just 1 out of 18 ODIs they've played against the Lankans. They are also unbeaten in this World Cup with two straight wins and will be raring to go after a hard-fought victory over Bangladesh.

Pitch and conditions | Pommie Mbangwa and Sana Mir: There's a threat of rain. 70 meter straight boundary. 56 and 63 meters square. This pitch has offered something for both seamers and spinners. Spinners would want to target the 3-4 meter area. With rain coming in, batting second a better option.

Toss will now happen at 2.45pm because of the rain earlier. Going to be a 3.15pm start.

It's overcast at the moment and there are plenty of covers on the outfield, although there are none on the square itself. Might've been a little drizzle earlier. For now, there are some blue skies along with the clouds and groundstaff are taking the covers away. England players are warming up...