England women 373 for 5 (Beaumont 148, Taylor 147, Kapp 3-77) beat South Africa305 for 9 (Lee 72, Wolvaardt 67, Hazell 3-70, Knight 2-52) by 68 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Tammy Beaumont and Sarah Taylor added 275 off 209 balls for the second wicket © Getty Images/ICC
Three days after shooting out West Indies for the sixth-lowest total in tournament history, South Africa’s much-vaunted bowling attack crumbled in the face of a brutal onslaught from Sarah Taylor and Tammy Beaumont on a batting beauty in Bristol.
Never had a team, in 14 completed innings prior, notched up a score in excess of 262; on Wednesday, England went 73 clear of that mark, thanks to a second-wicket stand of 275 – the highest in Women’s World Cup history and the second-highest in all women’s ODIs – to knock the stuffing out of South Africa.
Needing to pull off the highest successful chase ever, South Africa managed to become the first team to score in excess of 300 batting second in a women’s ODI, thanks to half-centuries from Laura Wolvaardt, Lizelle Lee and Chloe Tryon. But eventually, the magnitude of the task proved just too much, and South Africa fell well short, by 68 runs.
Taylor had spent a year out of the England team to deal with anxiety issues. She began the tournament opening the innings against India and Pakistan in the absence of Lauren Winfield. All it took was a move down to her favoured No. 3 position to find form again as she hit back with an unbeaten 74 against Sri Lanka. Against South Africa, she put up the finest display of batting since returning to the side.
Perhaps the 40th over of the innings provided the perfect encapsulation of the class and poise of Taylor’s innings. It was the ideal mix of deft touch, supple wrists, brute force, sublime timing and laser-guided placement. And it was Shabnim Ismail, South Africa’s fastest bowler, who bore the brunt of Taylor’s pristine hitting.
In the first ball of the over, Ismail strayed on the pads, and Taylor nonchalantly picked her up off the pads for a flick through midwicket. When Ismail tried to take the ball away from her, Taylor walked across early to clobber her straight down the ground. A half-volley was shoveled past mid-off using the bottom hand and a full toss was helped on its way to fine leg. Having tried just about everything, when Ismail tried dragging the length back, Taylor laid into a pull shot to dispatch her to the midwicket boundary.
The class of batting apart, the over also highlighted the mediocrity of South Africa’s bowling. On a flat pitch where the ball came on nicely, it needed intelligent changes in pace to subdue batsmen. Instead, South Africa offered Taylor and Beaumont a generous mix of full and short balls. It didn’t help that they offered width outside the off-stump and strayed on the pads all too often.
Full report to follow
Akshay Gopalakrishnan is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo