South Africa Women’s captain Laura Wolvaardt. File
| Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam
Speaking after the loss, South Africa captain Laura Wolvaardt was appreciative of her team’s batting in the match.
“To lose is a bit disappointing. But the character that the group has shown over the last two days was absolutely amazing. To concede 500-something runs on day one, I don’t think many people thought it would get all the way to the last session on day four.
“So, just the absolute grit and determination that every single batter had, going out there to see it through until the end was amazing. I think it’ll do a lot of good things for this group,” she said.
On her experience of captaining the side in the last two Tests versus Australia and India, she said: “Obviously, being at the WACA was all about pace, bounce, swing, and nip. Whereas, this was all about the spinners and sort of navigating that. I think captaincy-wise, it was quite tricky knowing which fields to set. They had a lot of funky fields that were really hard to bat against. Their spinners were accurate as well.
“I’ve learnt a lot as a player, spending time out there in the middle, batting. It’s going to help my captaincy as well, just to have observed what they were doing for more than 300 balls and just being out there. I think it’s probably the most memorable of the three Test matches that I’ve played, just because of the character that we showed.”
About the Chennai crowd, she added: “To have that many people at a Test match, was amazing. It’s awesome how supportive they are of the opposition as well, cheering and clapping when any of us sort of reached a milestone. It keeps it entertaining as well.
“I think the third day felt like a long time when I was batting out there, but it was nice to see them singing songs, which was quite funny. I think there was a (chorus of) ‘Laura is scared of Deepti’ at one stage!”
