India Women vs South Africa Women, 10th Match - Live Cricket Score, Commentary

India suffer their first loss of the tournament and the focus now shifts to how they respond. Their next challenge? Australia. It doesn’t get tougher than that. Can India bounce back the way South Africa did? We’ll find out on Sunday. There’s plenty more cricket to come before that, so make sure you join us for all the action. Until next time, this is Akshay Maanay signing off on behalf of Abhinand Raghavendran and our scorer Mukesh HS. Goodbye!

What a turnaround this has been from South Africa! From being bowled out for just 69 in their opening game against England to comfortably beating New Zealand and now holding their nerve against hosts India - this win will do wonders for their confidence. Nadine de Klerk might just have played one of the finest knocks of this World Cup and that’s saying something, because Richa Ghosh’s effort earlier in the day, rescuing India from 102/6 to 251, looked like a match-winning innings at the time. But in the end, it’s Nadine who walks away with the headlines.

Laura Wolvaardt | South Africa captain: That was incredible. I don't think I have seen anything like that in all my cricketing career. Nadine played a very very special innings. I am still lost for words. Found ourselves in a bit of pickle early. We have had a lot of conversations after that first game, if we do find ourselves in that position, graft as long as we can. We knew we were ahead of them the whole time, runs wise. They had a really good finish but we thought if we took it deep then we would do something special. She (Nadine) has been hitting the ball like that in the nets, hitting our bowlers all over the park and really glad to see it come off in a game. The temperament she showed as well, batting with the lower order and timing that chase incredibly well. Richa batted incredibly well, we tried to go wide plan to her but it almost looked like she wanted us to do that, she is one of the best batters at the death in the world and it is really hard to control her. 210-220 would have been nice but yeah, I am glad we were able to match with something special as well. Definitely (the spinners bowled well). Our pace bowlers bowled really well, I found pace came on quite nicely and spin was tough, we did really well to restrict them to 250 with a lot of pacers.

Harmanpreet Kaur | India captain: Tough game. Both teams played really well. Even though we collapsed while batting, we still managed to put 250 on the board. In the end, Chloe and de Klerk batted really well, they showed it was a very good pitch and they deserved to win with the way they batted. Richa has always been outstanding for us. She is someone who can always turn the game. And today the way she was hitting, we all were very pleased to see that. She is someone who can always hit those big sixes and get a big total on the board. And I think today she played it really beautifully. Hopefully, she will continue. As a top-order we did not take responsibility and lost too many wickets, we need to go back to the process. We kept losing wickets when we were in the middle. But a lot of learning for us because in the last few games we have been making the same mistake. I think as a group we need to sit and discuss which things can work for us to get a decent total on the board. It's a long tournament. I know today was a tough game for us. But a lot of learning and a lot of positives to see. As you mentioned, we have good games coming up. The important thing is to keep ourselves in a positive frame of mind and keep doing the right things, keep improving day by day.

Nadine de Klerk | Player of the Match: Yeah, look, at the moment, I'm lost for words. We've done a lot of good things over the last couple of days. Just to finish the game off, try and dig deep, give ourselves the best chance and hopefully this gives a lot of confidence to our crew going forward. I do love being under pressure. I love World Cups as well. And no bigger stage than playing India at home. We knew that we had to be at our very best today. And they got to 250, which is quite a good total. It's great to get over the line, and it just shows that we're capable of hitting the big sides and putting up a massive fight as well. When me and Chloe got together, we knew we just had to take it deep. We always said that I feel like we're a really good side in the back 10 overs. So we just said even if we need 10 rpo in the last 5-6 overs, we've got ourselves to get there. We got a great partnership with Chloe. She took a lot of pressure off me and Laura as well, what a captain's innings. So I think it just all came together. We probably left a little too much towards the back end. I'm really glad it came off today, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of positives going into the next game. I'm quite natural (referring to her six-hitting). I think that is my role within the side, is to come in at number eight and try and put bowlers under pressure and finish off games. Today I had quite a lot of time, so it was just to get myself in. I knew that it looked like a quite good wicket. I knew if I just gave myself a chance, that we were going to end up on the winning side, or at least give ourselves the best chance to finish it off.

Most runs scored after the fall of 5th wkts in a successful chase (ODIs)
171 - SAW vs INDW, Vizag, 2025 WC*
159 - ENGW vs INDW, Wankhede, 2019
151 - ENGW vs NZW, Wellington, 2024
146 - BANW vs IREW, Lahore, 2025

-- First win for South Africa against India after five consecutive defeats in ODIs, and this is also the third consecutive victory for SA-W against India in World Cups.

Highest target successfully chased in ODI World Cups
278 - AUSW vs NZW, Auckland, 2022
275 - SAW vs INDW, Christchurch, 2022
272 - AUSW vs SAW, Wellington, 2022
258 - AUSW vs SLW, Bristol, 2017
252 - SAW vs INDW, Vizag, 2025*

Highest score batting at No.8 or lower in WODIs
94 - Richa Ghosh (IND-W) vs SA-W, Vizag, 2025 WC
84* - Nadine de Klerk (SA-W) vs IND-W, Vizag, 2025 WC*
74 - Chloe Tryon (SA-W) v SL-W, Colombo, 2025
69 - Fatima Sana (PAK-W) v SA-W, Karachi, 2023

They rotated the strike, soaked up the pressure and stitched a vital partnership that brought South Africa back into the contest. But when Gaud came back to clean up Wolvaardt, India looked to have the upper hand again. Then came de Klerk’s brilliance. She started positively, and once the required rate climbed past eight, she shifted gears beautifully, finding the boundaries at will and sealing the game with seven balls to spare. Post-match stuff coming up..

23:25 Local Time, 17:55 GMT: Phew! What a game! The first real nail-biter of this World Cup and it’s India who end up on the wrong side of the result. Elation and joy in the South African camp, while the Indian players are left distraught. They fought hard, but a special knock from Nadine de Klerk has snatched the game away from them. Where do we even begin? The chase started dramatically, Kranti Gaud pulled off a blinder off her own bowling to dismiss Tazmin Brits for a duck. Sune Luus didn’t last long either, and while Laura Wolvaardt held one end up, wickets kept tumbling at the other. At 81/5, South Africa looked in real trouble when Chloe Tryon joined her skipper and together they began to rebuild.

12 runs from 12 balls. Harmanpreet has brought back Amanjot after Gaud went for runs. Can she stop this de Klerk juggernaut?