Australia stand-in captain Tahlia McGrath conceded her side were outplayed by South Africa after seeing their Women’s T20 World Cup title defence ended with a heavy eight-wicket loss in Dubai.
In a repeat of last year’s final, won by Australia to secure their third consecutive T20 World Cup victory and seventh overall, South Africa made amends to ease to a dominant win with nearly three overs to spare.
South Africa restricted Australia to 134-5 after winning the toss and electing to field first, before Anneke Bosch smashed a superb unbeaten 74 to guide the Proteas to their victory target and set up a showdown against either West Indies or New Zealand in Sunday’s final.
“It (losing) is going to be pretty hard to take,” said McGrath, captaining Australia again with Alyssa Healy out injured. “We just didn’t really show up and you can’t afford to do that in tournaments like this.
“Full credit to South Africa, they outplayed us and we weren’t at our best.”
Australia, who have featured in the last seven Women’s T20 World Cup finals, saw opener Grace Harris (three) and Georgia Wareham (five) both fall inside the first three overs before Beth Mooney (44) – who became the fastest player to reach 3,000 runs in women’s T20Is – and McGrath (27) steadied the innings with a 50-run partnership.
Mooney was run out in the 17th over after a direct hit from Marizanne Kapp’s throw at the striker’s end, while Phoebe Litchfield’s unbeaten 16 and Ellyse Perry’s quickfire 31 added late runs in Australia’s innings.
In reply, Tazmin Brits fell for 15 in the powerplay but Bosch and Proteas captain Laura Wolvaardt – who chalked up a swift 42 – took the game from Australia with their brilliant second-wicket partnership.
“We found it quite tricky and South Africa bowled really well,” McGrath added. “They just held stump line, took the pace off nicely and made it hard for us to take risks.
“At the halfway mark we thought that maybe 140-150 was par and fell short, then South Africa made it look like a totally different wicket and batted really well.
“We mis-executed a little bit, were just off our best and got punished. We tried to wrestle the momentum back but unfortunately couldn’t do that.
“We’ve had this World Cup in our minds for a very long time now. We worked really hard over the off-season to fine tune some things, we were really well prepped coming into here. It felt like we left no stone unturned but just didn’t show up.”
Bosch: We knew we could do it!
South Africa had lost all seven previous meetings in World Cups, including a 19-run defeat in the 2023 final, with player-of-the-match Bosch – who scored 74 from just 48 deliveries – proud to see that run ended.
“It was quite tough out there but I’m really glad we could get over the line and that I could finally contribute some runs,” Bosch said in her post-match presentation.
“We knew we were capable of it (winning) and we had a pretty good tournament so far, coming into this game, and were quite confident.
“I think our batters have been incredible for us this tournament and our bowlers have been really good. To restrict Australia to under 140 was really well done by our bowlers.”
South Africa captain Wolvaardt added: “This is one of the best wins of my cricketing career for sure. A couple of the other girls have said it as well – it was such an amazing chase.
“It has been a good year for us and a real collective group effort. I felt like our bowlers did excellently to restrict them.”
What’s next?
West Indies play New Zealand in the second semi-final on Friday, in Sharjah, with coverage beginning at 2.30pm on Sky Sports Cricket and Sky Sports Main Event ahead of the first ball at 3pm.
Dubai will then stage the final on Sundaywith the game starting at 3pm. Build-up starts at 2.30pm on Sky Sports Cricket.
