India's loss was the West Indies' gain in the 2022 Women's World Cup as the latter reached the semi-final of the tournament after Mithali Raj's side lost to South Africa on Saturday. The Cricket West Indies Twitter handle posted a video of the team celebrating the result of the match.
While there were a lot of congratulatory messages, there were also many handles who were disgruntled by the fact that India failed to qualify. West Indies' star all-rounder Hayley Matthews later shared a heartfelt note on Twitter.
“To understand the celebrations of our semi final qualification is to understand how far we’ve had to come as a team to reach this point. 1 year ago we were so far off something like this & completely written off coming into this WC. The growth is real in this team & I’m proud,” said Matthews.
“With that being said, I can’t imagine how heartbreaking last night must have been for the Indian side .Such a quality team! Gotta feel for them,” she said in a second tweet.
The match came down the last ball with momentum shifting both ways throughout the South African chase. It looked like India had delivered a body blow by dismissing former South Africa captain Mignon du Preez off the second last ball of the over. However, it turned out that bowler Deepti Sharma had overstepped by a whisker. It left South Africa needing two off the last two balls, which they knocked off to win the game.
{{/usCountry}}The match came down the last ball with momentum shifting both ways throughout the South African chase. It looked like India had delivered a body blow by dismissing former South Africa captain Mignon du Preez off the second last ball of the over. However, it turned out that bowler Deepti Sharma had overstepped by a whisker. It left South Africa needing two off the last two balls, which they knocked off to win the game.
{{/usCountry}}The West Indies had started the day on third, leading both India and England by a point. However, their net run rate was -0.885, which was far lesser than those of India (0.768) and England (+0.778). It meant that if India and England won their respective matches on the final day of group matches, they both would have had a one-point lead over the West Indies.