South Africa’s surge has the perennial runners-up looking dangerous again

A week ago South Africa looked like a team whose World Cup might fizzle out before it started. They had lost their opener, the talk was of another underwhelming campaign, and they walked into a game against Pakistan still searching for a win. Two matches later they have beaten Pakistan and India back to back, and the side that reached the last two finals suddenly looks like one nobody in the draw wants to meet again.

The win over India in Manchester was the statement. South Africa chased down their target with six wickets in hand and Marizanne Kapp unbeaten on 81 from 45 balls, after she had already gone for just 27 runs in her four overs and taken two wickets. It was the kind of all-round performance that wins knockout matches, delivered in a group game South Africa simply had to have.

From winless to dangerous

The turnaround began against Pakistan, where Annerie Dercksen’s 52 from 35 balls and Nadine de Klerk’s 37 from 28 dragged South Africa to their first points of the tournament. It was scrappy, but it stopped the slide. Four days later they knocked over the previously unbeaten India.

The numbers still carry a warning. South Africa sit third in Group 1 on four points, level with India but well behind on net run rate after that early defeat, and they have to keep winning. Games against Bangladesh and the Netherlands remain, and victories in both would take them to eight points and almost certainly into the semi-finals. The cushion they might have built with a fast start is not there, so the margin for error has gone.

The nearly team

What gives this run its weight is South Africa’s recent history. They lost the 2023 final to Australia and the 2024 final to New Zealand, beaten by 32 runs in Dubai, and they have still never won a senior ICC title in either the men’s or women’s game. Two finals in a row should have been the springboard. Instead it has left them carrying the label of the side that always falls at the last step.

That is why a scrappy fightback in the group stage matters more for this team than it might for others. Belief is the thing South Africa have lacked at the decisive moment, and beating India away from their best is the sort of result that builds it.

Wolvaardt still to fire

The most unsettling part for the rest of the field is that South Africa are winning without their best player at her most fluent. Laura Wolvaardt led the run charts at both the 2023 and 2024 World Cups, yet she has not yet produced the kind of innings that defines her tournaments. Kapp and the supporting cast have carried the load so far.

If the captain finds her range over the next week, a team that has already beaten India without her firing becomes a genuinely frightening proposition. South Africa have been here before and fallen short. This time they have arrived at the business end with their stars warming up rather than burning out, and that should worry everyone still in the hunt.

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