🏏ICC Women's World Cup 2025: South Africa W vs India W, FINAL🏏 - Page 7

No luck in toss,we are batting first

South Africa Women have won the toss and have opted to field

Laura Wolvaardt: We are going to bowl first. Bit of rain around and there might be dew later on, hoping for a bit of slippinness early on with all the rain around. We are unchanged from the semis.

And the time has come. The captains are finally out in the middle for the toss. Surely whoever wins it will want to bowl first? Let's find out what Harmanpreet and Wolvaardt have in mind. Harmanpreet has the coin and she gives it a spin. Heads is the call, and the coin, after a bit of a roll settles down, coming to a halt as heads. South Africa will bowl first.

Harmanpreet Kaur: We were looking to bowl looking at the overhead conditions. We will try to bat well and put up a decent score. I don't think there will be much on the pitch after 5-6 overs. We are going with the same team. We had 2 days to recover after the semis and everyone is looking forward to this game.

India Women (Playing XI): Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh(w), Amanjot Kaur, Radha Yadav, Kranti Gaud, Shree Charani, Renuka Singh Thakur

South Africa Women (Playing XI): Laura Wolvaardt(c), Tazmin Brits, Anneke Bosch, Sune Luus, Marizanne Kapp, Sinalo Jafta(w), Annerie Dercksen, Chloe Tryon, Nadine de Klerk, Ayabonga Khaka, Nonkululeko Mlaba

Teams:

India Women (Playing XI): Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh(w), Amanjot Kaur, Radha Yadav, Kranti Gaud, Shree Charani, Renuka Singh Thakur

South Africa Women (Playing XI): Laura Wolvaardt(c), Tazmin Brits, Anneke Bosch, Sune Luus, Marizanne Kapp, Sinalo Jafta(w), Annerie Dercksen, Chloe Tryon, Nadine de Klerk, Ayabonga Khaka, Nonkululeko Mlaba

Pitch Report: There is a nice breeze and that seems to have pushed the clouds away. Still quite muggy, though, with 79 percent humidity. The pitch is in the centre of the square. 66m straight hit, 56m and 57m square boundaries. Mel Jones thinks the pitch, being under covers, with the rain around, might interest swing bowlers such as Kapp and Renuka. Very similar to the one that saw the semi-final between India and Australia, although this strip was last used for the Ind-NZ game. Charani has been one of the few spinners to get the ball to turn at this venue, and it will be interesting to see how much purchase she can extract.

Pitch report - Mel Jones and Dinesh Karthik: 31 degrees right now. We are playing smack bang in the middle. Very similar to the semi final pitch. It's the same pitch that was used for India New Zealand game. The degree of spin is less compared to the other ground.

That is good, batting first and put runs on board is always good, rather than inform batters in tense situation to score .