India search for perfect end in historic Women’s Cricket World Cup final against South Africa

Psalm 30:5 … “Weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” That was one of the pieces of scripture Jemimah Rodrigues was reciting to herself as, battling exhaustion, she shepherded her team towards a stunning win against Australia, the reigning champions, in Thursday’s World Cup semi-final.

India have wept plenty over the years. They lost to Australia in the 2005 World Cup final, felled by a Karen Rolton hundred. More recently, three of the current team – Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma – will remember the sinking feeling of watching their team choke in a run chase of 229 against England at Lord’s in July 2017.

You have to go back 25 years, to December 2000, for the last occasion when a team other than Australia or England lifted the Women’s World Cup. At last, at the end of Sunday’s final, a new nation will have their name inscribed on the trophy, come what may. India are getting a third bite of the cherry, this time against South Africa, though we will have to wait and see whether Monday morning brings them the joy promised in the psalm.

The fatigue felt by Rodrigues on Thursday in the wake of her epic innings is a decent metaphor for the experience of female cricketers across her entire nation over the past 50 years. It has taken years of weary grind against institutionalised cricketing misogyny for India’s women to reach a point where 35,000 fans will fill a stadium to watch them play in a semi-final.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was the last major national board to offer its women’s team professional contracts, and stalled for years before introducing a Women’s Premier League in 2023. Any success India had on the field came in spite of, not because of, men in high places.

If one were scripting a sporting biopic, the perfect ending here would be an India win in front of a home crowd in Mumbai. For the International Cricket Council, it would certainly help to shift perceptions of a tournament which has drawn disappointing crowds to all non-India matches, and which has been marred by the ridiculous decision to stage half the group-stage games in Sri Lanka during monsoon season (final washout tally: six).

More importantly, it could at last allow women’s cricket to stand on something approaching an equal footing with the men’s game in the world’s most cricket-mad nation. A World Cup win would surely lead to fame and riches for Harmanpreet’s team of the like experienced by Kapil Dev’s side in 1983, but which the women’s game has never seen before. Hopefully, some of it might even trickle downwards - though there are no guarantees.

But of course the joy of sport is that nobody, not even the ICC chair Jay Shah, can script a result. Anyone who tells you that one team are clear favourites on Sunday has not paid enough attention to the trajectories of these two teams through the tournament.

South Africa’s group-stage campaign was bookended by being bowled out for 69 by England and 97 by Australia. India lost a match they should have won against England and at one point looked like they would struggle to reach the knockouts at all. The India v South Africa clash in the group stages was one of the tournament’s nail-biters, and concluded with an awesome display of power-hitting from Nadine de Klerk at the death which enabled South Africa to score an unlikely 41 off the final 25 balls. What will happen in Sunday’s final? It’s anyone’s guess.

Bear in mind that emotions will already be running high, and then remember that this final will see two of women’s cricket’s most fiery characters going head-to-head. Marizanne Kapp’s bowling is so ferocious that she once almost single-handedly enabled her team to defend 121 in a Hundred final. On the opposing side, Harmanpreet has scored two half-centuries this tournament, including 89 in the semi-final against Australia – but will be desperate to go on and score a match-winning ton.

“Harman seems to step up in those big moments when India need her,” was Alyssa Healy’s verdict after the semi-final. “She’s going to have to do it all again on Sunday to get them over the line.”

For India, who will be bone-weary after throwing everything they had at defeating the almighty Aussies, it’s a big ask to do it all again three days later, especially when the stakes are so high. If they do manage to pull it off, let’s remember that the joy was only possible because of the weeping which came before.

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