South Africa women 207 for 7 (Lee 60, Wolvaardt 52, Yousuf 2-30) beat Pakistan women 206 for 8 (Nahida 79, Daniels 2-21, Ismail 2-52) by three wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Lizelle Lee made great use of the slog sweep © Getty Images
South Africa had only won four out of 30 ODIs in which they had to chase 200 or more. But victory looked a mere formality on Sunday when Lizelle Lee and Laura Wolvaardt, their openers, put on 113 in chase of 207. Then, out of nowhere, they lost five wickets for 38 runs, three of them to run outs, to induce panic. The cruise had turned into a full-blown collapse with Pakistan gleefully tightening the noose.
It came down to the No. 9 batsman Shabnim Ismail, who had a poor day with the ball, conceding 52 off her nine overs for two wickets – expensive when taken into account the low-scoring contest, to reintroduce the calm back into South Africa’s chase as she hit back-to-back fours to clinch a three-wicket win with an over to spare. Sune Luus contributed 15 valuable runs to an unbroken 30-run stand for the eighth wicket to deliver the knockout blow for Pakistan, whose wait for a win in a World Cup match is into its eighth year.
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Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo