OBAKENG MELETSE
THE Proteas women gave a performance worth a diamond when they thrashed Sri Lanka by seven wickets to reach an unassailable series lead in Kimberley on Saturday.
Laura Wolvaardt with cool head Marizanne Kapp, grabbed the target by the horns and steered their side to a comfortable win with 14 balls to spare.
Wolvaardt was dropped without a score by Anushka Sanjeewani, but so great is her form currently that even regulation edges fail to carry. Sri Lanka were made to rue their sloppy fielding as the stylish right hander went on to play a real captain’s knock (110 off 141 balls, 6x4).
Sune Luus looked good for her 21 but was bowled by Inoka Ranaweera with rain flirting with the idea of coming down. A threat of in-form Marizanne Kapp was walking into the wicket to join her captain. The pair put on a match winning partnership of 147 off 166 balls and also collected maximum points in their quest for automatic World Cup qualification..
Woolvardt for two consecutive matches has shown great maturity sticking around even when her strike rate has been well below her potential. Her sixth career century is probably one she had to work a little bit hard for, but the balance between absorbing pressure and putting away loose deliveries with consistent rotation of strike was something to admire.
Opening match centurion,Tazmin Brits has been ruled out for the rest of the series due to injury and will be going under the knife with the Twenty20 World Cup just around the corner
Earlier, good tight bowling by Kapp 0-17 and Ayabonga Khaka 3-28 restricted the Islanders to only 15 runs with five overs bowled.
Vishmi Gunaratne (7) struggled to rotate strike and to capitalise on the opening powerplay. She saw her attempted clip off the legs towards the square leg boundary only successful in finding the safe hands of Masabata Klaas, who calmly completed the catch .
Chamari Athapaththu playing in her 100th ODI match, has made a habit of coming up with telling performances against South Africa. The elegant opener struggled to get into rhythm with the Proteas hitting their marks with ease to restrict the Islanders to 29-1 after the first powerplay.
Athapaththu (51 off 69 balls, 9x4) latched on to Eliz Mary Marx’s 14th over, and hit her for four consecutive boundaries and with that broke her shackles on her way to her 16th ODI half century to celebrate her milestone.
Hansima Karunaratne (33) and Kaveesha Dilhari (42) 61 run partnership quietly brought some resistance and momentum to the visitors total.They failed to accelerate at the back end of the innings. The last ten overs went for 47 runs with three wickets falling in the process.
Nadine de klerk (3-23) and Nonkululeko Mlaba (2-40) played a crucial role in restricting the visitors.
Obakeng Meletse was in Kimberley to cover the Momentum Proteas women versus Sri Lanka courtesy of Momentum.