About 4 months ago, the South African cricket team had created history by making it to the final of the T20 World Cup for the first time. However, still it had to face defeat at the hands of Team India in the final. Now the South African women's team has come on the field with the intention of fulfilling this dream and here it has started with a bang. In its very first match of the tournament being played in UAE, South Africa defeated West Indies in such a way that it removed all its old wounds. South Africa, which has always lost to West Indies in the T20 World Cup, won for the first time, that too by 10 wickets. After the lethal bowling of spinner Nonkululeko Malaba, captain Larou Woolwart and Taizmin Britts easily led the team to victory.
In this match played on Friday 4 October in Dubai, West Indies batted first. The West Indies team had lost 3 wickets including captain Hayley Mathews and star batsman Diandra Dottin in just 7 overs. For South Africa, experienced all-rounder Marijn Kapp took the two biggest wickets of Mathews and Dottin with his medium pace. Till this time West Indies had scored only 32 runs. After this, there was a 30-run partnership for the fourth wicket between Stafanie Taylor and Shimen Campbell, which seemed to be making a comeback for the team.
It was here that Malaba broke the partnership by taking 2 wickets on consecutive balls and stopped the pace of West Indies. He soon took his fourth wicket also. Windies, who were looking in trouble after losing 6 wickets for only 83 runs, somehow Taylor and Jada James made an unbeaten partnership of 35 runs and took them to 118 runs for 6 wickets in 20 overs. Taylor returned unbeaten after scoring 44 runs in 41 balls. For South Africa, Malaba took 4 wickets for just 29 runs in 4 overs, while Kaap spent 14 runs in his 4 overs and took 2 wickets.
South Africa had never defeated West Indies in the T20 World Cup before. In such a situation, this score could also have been challenging for them but the opening pair of the team did not allow this to happen. Captain Laura Woolworth, along with the Brits, achieved this target in just 17.5 overs by hitting fours, while the team did not lose a single wicket. Both the batsmen scored half-centuries. Woolworth scored 59 runs in 55 balls and Britts scored 57 runs in 52 balls. In this way, South Africa took revenge for the 10-wicket defeat suffered by West Indies in the T20 World Cup in 2012. Also, it became the first team in the history of Women's T20 World Cup to win the match by 10 wickets twice.
