A gut call that changed it all

The cameras kept the focus on a suddenly-cramping Richa Ghosh receiving medical treatment in the middle of the 47th over, and alternated with visuals from the South African mini huddle in the middle where Ayabonga Khaka tried her best to calm Nadine de Klerk down. Standing in a daze at the DV Subba Rao end was Kranti Gaud, flanked by Harmanpreet Kaur on one side and Renuka Thakur on the other.

Gaud got more than a few pats on the back from Thakur, who had to quickly rush out of the field so that the play could resume, and then an embracing hug from her captain with the side of a pep talk. The rest of the over, as de Klerk suspected and hid in her complaints, was uneventful after all that lengthy break in the momentum.

Interestingly, what had transpired in the first-half of the over that flipped the game on its head. Or maybe even a bit before that.

Gaud was not Harmanpreet's first-choice for what proved to be a game-changing over. Amanjot Kaur, returning to the XI for Thakur, had begun her death-overs spell from the end at the start of the 45th, and was shadow-practicing - digging in one short - ahead of the next before the captain waved Gaud over from cover-point region. Amanjot assumed position in the offside field instead, ending a brief one-over spell on return.

South Africa needed the last 41 at more than 10 an over at this stage, with a well-set Chloe Tryon just removed at the end of an 11-run over from Sneh Rana.

Gaud ran in and banged the first one so short it sailed over de Klerk's head to be called wide. Harmanpreet jogged down from midoff to have a quick word with the young pacer. De Klerk heaved the re-attempted delivery, a fuller one on off stump, over the deep midwicket ropes. Harmanpreet ran in again, and told Gaud to just aim for the blockhole next. The youngster overpitched, missing the yorker, and was tonked straight down the ground for a second successive six. This time, wicketkeeper Ghosh too skipped down to chime in with a quick tip for Gaud. De Klerk knew to expect a slower one next. With the offside field still up, she backed away and lofted it over the right fielders to nearly go all the way again.

In the space of three hits, the equation had swung firmly in South Africa's favour, perhaps for the first time since they slipped to 81/5 in pursuit of India's 251. Riding the momentum wave, de Klerk had just gone from 28 off 33 to a 40-ball half-century with the first of those maximums.

India's delaying tactics, as she later put it, was bound to cause a distraction South Africa would ill-afford at the time. It was also perhaps why Ayabonga Khaka, who had just replaced Tryon in the middle, kept repeating the words "calm down" to the half-centurion. In hindsight, the breaks in play also allowed the batting pair to get a breather.

"Look, I think we just kind of questioned whether something really happened," De Klerk said of Ghosh's sudden hamstring issue, and the ensuing drama. "We obviously felt like it was quite tactical from India to try and slow the game down. But I think in the end it actually worked out quite well because we also got a bit of a refreshment and it just gave me a few seconds to restart my head and my game plans as well. I think in the end it worked out quite well. But, yeah, we knew it was quite tactical. They really tried to slow the game down, especially with [us] starting the over quite well."

There was indeed no looking back for the South African who had gauged the track very well and made all but one of those 41 remaining runs herself, in an unbroken 18-ball stand with Khaka. That game-changing over induced further mistakes in form of full-tosses and freebies that were duly punished as de Klerk went on to outshine Ghosh's similar rescue act at no. 8, a bit of a recurring theme this week at the Women's World Cup.

What prompted Harmanpreet to make that last-second swap was never addressed. Was it simply a captain's gut call that didn't land? Gaud had, after all, produced a moment of pure brilliance from this very end at the start of the chase. Or was it a workload concern, a calculated move to for a player returning from a back complaint ahead of the World Cup? Gaud had two overs left in the tank; Amanjot had several more, with Harmanpreet herself stepping in as a sixth-bowling option on the night.

In the end, it may not have mattered either way; de Klerk punished Amanjot's wayward lengths just as effectively to seal the chase with an over to spare.

"Seam was much easier [to play] on this wicket and even when we bowled the backend, we felt like it was a pretty good wicket. India's spinners bowled really well in that middle phase, so especially in that back 10, we knew they're going to have to bowl a few seamers and that was going to be the much easier option to take on," the Player of the Match said.

"We just played smart cricket. Me and Chloe just tried to take it really deep. We knew that if we had to get 40 of the last four and the two of us were still batting that we could get it. So, it was just about building that partnership, getting ourselves in and then taking the pacers down. That was always the plan to try and take the pacers down, which was much easier on that surface."

Not long after the defeat, in a moment of quiet reflection, Harmanpreet and Gaud sat near each other in the Indian dugout, their eyes transfixed on the post-match stir in the middle. South Africa's coup had exposed the fault lines in India's five frontline bowlers strategy, a gamble that may have worked against weaker opponents but unraveled under real pressure.