Home Dressing Rooms
Grade: D-
The final match of the group stages saw Australia and India square off to determine whether South Africa made the semi-finals.
Oh, sure, South Africa almost took their fate into their own hands with a heroic collapse against Bangladesh, leaning very hard into their nation’s great World Cup history. But they eventually got over the line, which meant that their place in the next stage was wholly dependent on whether Australia could defeat India.
Perhaps worryingly for South Africa, Australia were given the home dressing room at Lord’s. A strange choice. Would the Lord’s members even remember to spew their traditional unjustified, misinformed, drunkenly enraged invective at the Australians for completing a run-of-the-mill and perfectly legitimate dismissal if they entered the Long Room and turned instead for the England dressing room? It felt unlikely.
Ha ha ha! I jest, of course. It’s a women’s game. The members wouldn’t even be in attendance.
Sweat
Grade: F
For the most part, the India innings was uneventful. They didn’t lose wickets, but nor did they accelerate out of control. Then suddenly the Australians seemed to realise their opponents were only going to reach 150 or so. We’ll barely break a sweat chasing that, the Australian team decided as one, and so began comically dropping outfield catches over the rope to the mounting frustration of the South Africa side watching in the stands.
