India crowned themselves worthy world champions by a 52 run leash over South Africa on a wholesome all round display driven by Deepti Sharma’s brilliant 5 for 39 take and run a ball 58 that though left her in the misty unlucky not getting the Player of the Match plum which went to the 87 up Shafali Verma as the injury replacement for Pratika Rawal who proved to be their batting trump card to the call adding 2 wickets to her playmaker role in a 2025 ICC Women’s World Cup final that the Protea captain Laura Wolvaardt must be left ruing her failure to translating her 101 98 ball century works into the big show, big cup glitter that she literally threw out of the window by a passive play of going just for the odd single and granting India many dot balls when needing 155 off 124 balls into the 29.3rd over at Navi Mumbai’s Dr Dy Parli Sports Academy in yesterday’s final.
If India rode a slippery slope despite a 101 opening thrust by Verma and Smriti Madhana whose running herself in a world cup final for 45 is unforgivable with the only other worthy 34 from Richa Ghosh that carried the hosts to a challenging total, Wolvaardt remained virtually South Africa’s one single hope in a slithering of the rest before India’s tearing Sharma-Verma spin force, and the fact that the Protea captain had worked herself into the right century form rhythm to failing her side to losing her wicket with the world cup in sight was as unforgivable to throwing it away having got to the century milestone and with Nadine de Klerk a worthy batter for lending support, a feat that was to ultimately redundant by her inability to bat her country to the biggest stakes in world cricket. Her apparent cowing down playing dot balls and content with the mere single was s huge setback to the South African cause.
India 298 for 7 (Shafali 87, Deepti 58, Mandhana 45, Ghosh 34, Khaka 3-58) beat South Africa 246 (Wolvaardt 101, Dercksen 35, Deepti 5-39, Shafali 2-36) by 52 runs