'Didn't Really Expect...': Laura Wolvaardt Frustrated By Shafali Verma's Game-Changing Strikes

Navi Mumbai: South Africa skipper Laura Wolvaardt was at a loss of words explaining her agony at losing wickets to a part-time bowler like Shafali Verma in their ICC Women's World Cup final against India.

Playing their third ODI World Cup summit clash, SA had earlier lost two T20 World Cup finals to Australia and New Zealand in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

India, meanwhile, ended their wait for the elusive World Cup title becoming third time lucky after losing in the 2017 ODI World Cup final and 2020 T20 WC final.

The South Africans were on their way to mounting a stiff challenge when Shafali struck out of the blue scalping the wickets of Sune Luus and Marizanne Kapp.

The twin strikes dealt a body blow to South Africa's chances of lifting the World Cup as all the work ultimately fell in the hands of the peerless Wolvaardt.

"Yeah, didn't really expect her to bowl much today so a bit of a surprise factor from them. She just kind of bowled front of the hand and really slow and was able to pick up a couple of wickets," she added.

"In a World Cup final you don't want to lose wickets to a part-time bowler. But frustrating that she was able to pick up two, two big ones as well, and yeah, then almost had to own the side of caution to not give her any more wickets.

"She bowled pretty well. Frustrating I guess because it's not really the person you plan for," she added.

Wolvaardt felt there was development and growth of women's cricket in South Africa.

"After that first one at Newlands (vs Australia), we had domestic contracts introduced (and) that's really big for our depth as a team. The last one (vs New Zealand) just made us sort of a bigger name in cricket I guess," she said.

"We're the team that consistently is making finals now, whereas before it was maybe like a one-time thing so I'm really proud that we're able to reach three in a row. It shows that we're doing something right domestically and from a squad perspective, consistency wise," she added.

Wolvaardt had a roaring World Cup with the bat as she amassed 571 runs in nine matches at an average of 71.37 slamming centuries in the semifinal and final.

"My ODI cricket has sort of come a long way in this tournament. To win games you've got to be nice and positive and nice and aggressive and I've really tried to sort of explore that a bit in this tournament," she said.

"It hasn't been my best year in ODI cricket, I was maybe a bit too conservative or one dimensional, so really happy with the different options that I was able to bring in throughout this tournament."