South Africa Women win 3rd ODI to level series 1-1

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa- The West Indies Women suffered a 96-run defeat in the third One Day International (ODI) to South Africa at the Imperial Wanderers Stadium. With the win, the hosts have now leveled the series at 1-1 after the first match was abandoned due to rain.

South Africa Women won the toss and elected to bat first in the day/night fixture, with Laura Woolvardt giving the hosts a solid total to defend. Woolvardt struck 117 and captain Sune Luus 56 as South Africa posted 299/8 from their 50 overs. Shamilia Connell took a career best 4/54 bowling for the West Indies Women.

The West Indies Women were without two batters, after Chedean Nation took a tumble during their fielding innings and was unable to return to bat. Then captain Stafanie Taylor was ruled out from the remainder of the match after being medically assessed as concussed.

Kycia Knight struck 69 from 93 deliveries, which included seven fours. Aaliyah Alleyne who came on as the concussion substitute was the next best batter with 18. Shabnim Ismail was the best South African bowler, finishing with 4/37 from 8.4 overs.

At the end of the match, West Indies Women’s vice-captain Anisa Mohammed said, “I think South Africa scored 40-50 runs more than we expected, then we lost Taylor and Nation which I think was a crucial part of the game us. If we had those two batters, we probably would have gotten closer to the score or win the game. We have a couple days (until the next match) so we’re going to reassess what happened. We have a lot of game-changes on our team and we’re hoping that on Sunday we will be able to come out and play our best cricket.”

The teams return to the Imperial Wanderers Stadium on Sunday for the fourth and final match with the series win on the line. It is a day fixture, first ball at 10:00am local time (4:00am Eastern Caribbean Time/3:00am Jamaica Time).