Women's T20 World Cup 2026: All-round Marizanne Kapp powers South Africa to win over India

Marizanne Kapp made the most of a couple of dropped catches to hit an unbeaten 81 and power South Africas crucial sixwicket win over India in their Group A contest of the Womens T20 World Cup here on SundayKapp who had earlier returned 227 with the ball struck seven fours and four sixes to make her runs off just 45 balls She was dropped twice by substitute fielder Radha Yadav which proved catastrophic for IndiaIn reply to Indias laborious 158 for seven earlier in the innings South Africa won with five balls to spare making 161 for four in 191 oversKapp put on 97 runs for the third wicket with Tazmin Brits 40 off 36 balls which laid the foundation for an impressive win for the Proteas which also took them to the third position in the points table behind secondplaced India and tabletoppers AustraliaHarmanpreet opened with Shafali Verma and kept changing the bowling frequently and the Indian challenge was met by some stoic response from the South African openers who did not take early initiative of attackingIt resulted in the Proteas reaching 25 for no loss after the fifth over and a doublewicket maiden from Shree Charani 324 wrecked their start by the end of the powerplayCharani first timed her jump to perfection to grab a sharp catch over her head to remove the dangerous Laura Wolvaardt 20 and then cleaned up Annerie Dercksen 0 two balls laterBut South Africa fought their way back to controlling the game with the superb stand between Kapp and Brits consuming only 63 balls to do soThe pair ran extremely well between wickets and kept finding the odd boundary every over to keep their team in the hunt But a slow start meant they had to be a tad more aggressive than they wereThe partnership between Brits and Kapp would not have swelled to the extent that it did if Radha Yadav had not spilled a regulation catch coming in from longon giving the latter a lifelineThe association ended when Brits connected well but found Charani at deep backward square in the 17th over off Shafali who would have got her second wicket in the same over had Radha not dropped another regulation chanceComing in from longon the hit from Kapp popped out of Radhas hands as India once again missed a crucial opportunity to get rid of the veteran South AfricanEarlier Deepti Sharma made a vital 29 while skipper Harmanpreet Kaur struck 24 as India struggling on a twopaced wicket cross 150India collapsed from 54 for no loss to 83 for four before the two senior players put on 33 runs for the fifth wicket to stabilise the innings which was also marred by some ordinary shot selectionDeepti struck three fours in her 21ball 29 before failing to execute a sweepOn her part Harmanpreet 24 off 22 balls who became the first cricketer across both men and women to feature in 200 T20Is played one on at a crucial junction for IndiaThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever