South Africa captain Laura Wolvaardt kept up her amazing streak of form in the ICC Women’s World Cup and made her mark among the world’s best by being only the eighth player ever to score over 1,000 runs in Women’s World Cup history. In the rain-affected match against Pakistan in Colombo on Wednesday, Wolvaardt came up with a stylish 82-ball 90 — ten fours and two sixes were part of her innings — to take South Africa to 312/9 in 40 overs. By the feat, she also surpassed Australian great Belinda Clark in the all-time ODI run-scorer list and is now at the sixth position with a total of 4,921 runs in women’s ODIs.
Laura Wolvaardt anchors South Africa’s dominant batting display
After Pakistan decided to bowl first, South Africa got on the board with some good pressure right from the start, however, Tazmin Brits was out for a duck. But Wolvaardt and Sune Luus brought back the innings with their crucial 118-run partnership. Luus went out of the way to keep the Proteas on the front foot by hitting 61 runs off 59 balls with eight fours and two sixes. Meanwhile, Wolvaardt was full of grace and control and ended up just one hand short of a well-deserved century.
South Africa didn’t let up their pressure on the bowlers and Kapp came out to play in the middle overs as she blazed an unbeaten 68 off 43 balls, hitting six fours and three sixes. Tryon (21 off 16) and de Klerk (41 off 16) came in to finish the innings with a bang as they helped the team to a challenging total in a rain-reduced match.
For Pakistan, Sadia Iqbal and Nashra Sandhu were the top performers with the ball as they each took three wickets, but South Africa’s explosive batting gave them the upper hand at the end of the innings.
