We’ve done it

Jubilation for England as last-over drama sends them into Lord’s final

In the tightest of finishes in the Women’s World Cup semi-final, England beat South Africa with just two wickets and two balls to spare yesterday.

Sunday’s final at Lord’s was already sold out when Anya Shrubsole clouted her first and only ball through the covers to take England to it. Around 26,000 spectators have paid between five pounds for children and fifty pounds for the most expensive seats, while an unknown number of MCC members will maybe mutter that things are not what they used to be yet give women’s cricket the benefit of the doubt, in accordance with the sport’s tradition.

But for one England player the triumph lay not so much in the result, or the fact that she won the player of the match award, but in simply participating. Sarah Taylor had given up the game because of “anxiety issues” and only a year ago was unable to get out of bed. “Congrats,” said the England Women’s coach Mark Robinson when she turned up for the start of play, for that was a victory in itself.

“I turned up this morning and Robbo said ‘congrats’ – I had no idea what for, and he just said ‘for being here, for waking up this morning and turning up and putting your kit on and arriving at the ground,’” Taylor said, adding that he was the person who had helped her most aside from her family who were present.

Taylor won the award for some brilliant wicketkeeping and her innings of 54 off 76 balls before she was run out. Her graceful athleticism is a joy to watch, however tormented she may once have felt. It is no exaggeration to compare her with Kumar Sangakkara when he used to keep wicket, and James Foster of Essex and England, whereas the majority of wicketkeepers are squat and sturdy.

It would not be humanly possible to surpass Taylor’s stumping of South Africa’s number three batsman Trisha Chetty for speed. First it was footwork, catching a wide down leg-side, then the swiftest glovework in taking the ball back to the stumps. And whenever a batsman missed a reverse-sweep, she caught the ball cleanly amid a flurry of dust, because it was a tired used pitch for this semi-final.

England chased a target of only 219 because one difference between the men’s and women’s international formats is there are more dot-balls in the latter, so totals are lower. South Africa’s batsmen lacked the weight of stroke to hit boundaries: not Mignon du Preez though, as she hit 76 off 95 balls, and not Laura Wolvaardt, who played some cover-drives to perfection.

She is still a schoolgirl, just 18, though she also attends Gary Kirsten’s academy in Cape Town, and the impetuosity of youth was not revealed until she went back to a slow offbreak from England’s captain Heather Knight and missed.

Another difference is that the white ball swings in female hands – Shrubsole into righthanders and Nat Sciver away – albeit at far lesser speed. And England’s spinners turned out to be more effective than South Africa’s, not least because South Africa’s captain Dane van Niekerk bowled only half her quota in spite of being her country’s leading wicket-taker in this tournament with her legbreaks.

England’s opening batsmen were Final blow: Anya Shrubsole clubs her first, and only ball, through the covers for victory donated seven wides in one over and two consecutive no-balls – with free hits – in another, but both got out when set. So Taylor and Knight had to build a stand, in the face of a ten-over spell by Ayabonga Khaka, who comes from the Eastern Cape, the one area of South Africa where the indigenous population has always played cricket since the nineteenth century

Taylor could not have coverdriven her first ball through the covers more gloriously. When England threatened to get bogged down, she looked for the vacancies legside and found the boundary, not least with a couple of rampshots. Then Knight pushed into the covers and called, while her counterpart van Niekerk threw down the stumps, and Taylor was too graceful to dive.

Knight was horrified again, a few minutes later, when she pulled the slowest of full tosses to Wolvaardt at square-leg. A couple of more wickets as semi-final nerves set in and England had to score 46 off their last 46 balls – above the daylong rate – with only four wickets left, the crowd either cheering every ball or dismayed.

Jenny Gunn, a veteran, answered the challenge by clubbing legside at a run a ball and reducing the target to 20 off four overs of pace: “I’m surprised they didn’t try an over of spin,” Gunn said afterwards. She lost her capable partner Fran Wilson, but the requirement came down to only two off the final over. Gunn took a single, Laura Marsh mowed and missed, but Shrubsole clubbed and the line was crossed.

The emotions were different too, or perhaps more openly expressed. Some of the South Africans were in tears as Gunn went over to console: “It’s really horrible to lose when you get that close but I felt they’ve made their country proud.” A comparison with choking by South Africa’s men in global tournaments would not be in order: they were ranked sixth when they entered this tournament, and have had a full-time squad only since 2013.

“I’m a dreadful watcher,” Knight said afterwards, “but what a game, and I’m delighted to be in that final.”