50 overs India 298 for 6 (Shafali 87, Deepti 58, Mandhana 45, Ghosh 34, Khaka 3-58) vs South Africa
The contest was tantalisingly placed at the halfway stage. India would definitely have wanted more, having been 200 for 3 at the 35-over mark, but for all that, 299 will make for a stiff chase anywhere, never mind in a World Cup final against the hosts in a stadium jam-packed with home support.
And this pitch at the DY Patil Stadium hasn’t looked quite as flat as the one that hosted the India-Australia semi-final did; the ball gripped and stopped for both South Africa’s spinners and their seamers when they bowled cutters, and India will have made note of this.
Ghosh had been the one India batter consistently able to hit the old ball cleanly through the line, and made 34 off 24 balls with three fours and two sixes. Khaka didn’t just dismiss her, caught at deep backward square leg, but also cramped her repeatedly through the 49th over with pinpoint yorkers that unerringly followed her feet’s attempt to manufacture room.
Shafali, stepping out to the seamers whenever she could, drove and flicked her way to five fours in her first 19 balls, and Mandhana, less overtly aggressive, had unfurled her two favourite shots, the back-cut and the cover drive, against Khaka in a 14-run sixth over.
But South Africa pulled things back courtesy de Klerk’s straighter lines and left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba’s pace variations, with India only scoring 13 runs in the five overs from the ninth to the 13th.
The boundaries began to flow again thereafter, though, with Shafali launching de Klerk down the ground for the first six of the innings in the 15th over. But just when India seemed to be pulling away from South Africa’s reach, Mandhana was out playing a shot that brings her a lot of runs, an attempt to late-cut left-arm spinner Chloe Tryon ending up as an outside edge to the keeper.
This pull-push continued all the way through the innings, in conditions where neither the bowlers nor batters could quite get on top. A tiring, cramping Shafali fell after adding 16 runs to her previous ODI best of 71 not out, holing out while looking to hit straight and big, and Rodrigues, who made a bright start, fell to a slightly uppish drive, with Laura Wolvaardt taking a superb low catch at cover.
This was all evidence of a pitch where the ball was stopping every now and then. Harmanpreet Kaur, having got off to a promising start like Rodrigues, also discovered it could occasionally skid through, when she was bowled attempting to make room and punch Mlaba.
That wicket took out one of India’s batters with power to defy the conditions. The other, Ghosh, came in at 245 for 5 in the 44th over and launched her second ball for an effortless six over the covers. South Africa seemed rattled by her entry, their seamers shifting away from stump-to-stump cutters and looking for the yorker instead, only to discover that strategy’s small margins for error.
Khaka’s dismissal of Ghosh, however, evened things up once more.
All through this latter part of the innings, Deepti had been a busy presence, slog-sweeping with authority when she could, and keeping the strike turning over when she couldn’t. She didn’t quite find the next gear, however, to lift India to the 320-plus total they had seemed set for for most of their innings.
Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo