West Indies win battle of the outgoers, New Zealand keep South Africa in
Sundays in Paarl unspool to a sacred rhythm. Church rules the morning, keeping the streets as they were before sunrise. Lunchtime prompts an ooze of life, which thickens to a trickle in the afternoon, swelling into a slow flow in the evening.
Cricket is subject to this template. Put a match at Boland Park on a Sunday morning and the grass banks will remain largely vacant, even the pools of shade under the trees - no small thing in a proper cricket town where the heat rises, dry and dense, from dawn, stays until long after dusk, and does it all again tomorrow in incandescent glory.
Even an occasion featuring Faf du Plessis, James Vince, Kyle Verreynne, Tabraiz Shamsi, Ben Dunk and Imran Tahir, a game in the MSL in December 2019, failed to attract many Paarl punters because it started before the hymns had risen into the sapphire sky of a beautiful Sunday morning.
Come back at 3 pm, the crowd might have told the players between verses of those hymns. Like the women's T20 WC did on Sunday, for the last time in Paarl. This crowd had seen New Zealand bowled out for 76 and 67, the latter on Monday by a South Africa team in pressing need of a win after losing to Sri Lanka. They had seen Alyssa Healy hit 55 off 38 and Alice Capsey club 51 off 22. They had seen Ash Gardner claim 5/12, and Sophie Ecclestone twice take three wickets at less than a run a ball - a feat Amelia Kerr, Sarah Glenn, Cara Murray and Nonkululeko Mlaba accomplished once each.
What would West Indies and Pakistan give them to see in Sunday's first match? Poor quality cricket that delivered a contest that survived until the last delivery, which Omaima Sohail had to hit for four to force a super over. Shamilia Connell speared the ball into the pads, and all that accrued was a leg bye.
It shouldn't have been nearly that close, what with West Indies dawdling and dwindling to 116/6. They sacrificed 50 deliveries - almost half their innings - in dot balls and hit just nine boundaries. None of Pakistan's bowlers were particularly threatening on a slow but flat pitch. Even so, only Aiman Anwer, who went for 19 in two overs, could be called expensive.
Just 10 times in the previous 39 T20Is the Windies had won fielding first, and when they had not been dismissed, had they successfully defended a lower score. And not since November 2018. That they managed to do so this time was thanks as much to their own bowling as it was to Pakistan losing only half their wickets but all of their nerve. Alia Riaz' blast of 29 off 23 was the closest they came to a positive performance. Their innings featured two more dot balls and one less boundary than their opponents'.
The quality of the teams' batting - insipid, lacking impetus and any sign of a plan - wasn't good enough for the global stage. The fielding was worse. It was the type of display that aids and abets those who deride women's cricket. Happily, from the neutral crowd's perspective, that meant they had a match on their hands.
When did the winners think they had it in the bag? "I don't think ever," Hayley Matthews said. "We knew it's a game of cricket, and the momentum could change at any point. We knew Pakistan still had dangerous batters at the crease, and we had to be on our mark for as long as possible."
Matthews heaved a catch to deep square leg three balls before the end of the powerplay, in which the Windies crept to 34/1. "I think with the start we had, we probably accepted that we were at least 20 runs short," she said. "We felt like we should have gotten to at least 135, 140. But before we went out on the field we had a pretty long chat, speaking about the fight that we had to show if we wanted to compete in the game.
"We knew about how the bowlers and the fielders had to be on our mark and where we had to go right to win the game, and I think it was a complete team effort - we fielded pretty well, we bowled pretty well.
"Defending 117 is never going to be easy, and the way we went out there and threw our bodies at the ball, the way our bowlers stepped up to the plate when we knew it was going to be a tough task, was just beautiful. Not only to be a part of it but to watch the other girls do it as well and hold their own was brilliant to see."
A Pakistan victory would have made the semifinal equation less certain. Instead, both teams are close to joining already eliminated Ireland among the also-rans while England and India seem bound for the final four in group two.
Sunday's other clash was also freighted with implication. A Sri Lanka win would shut the door on South Africa's chances of reaching the semis. Should New Zealand win, the home side would stay in the running. The prospect of the Lankans' prevailing all but disappeared when Suzie Bates and Kerr put on 110 off 83 to send New Zealand surging to a total of 162/3, softening the memory of the Kiwis' two double-figure disasters at this ground. When Sri Lanka's top five crashed inside nine overs with just 35 runs scored, the conclusion was foregone. They were dispatched for 60 in 15.5, their third-lowest total in a completed innings.
New Zealand's thumping win, by 102 runs, matched the margin they beat the Lankans by in Christchurch in November 2015 as the Kiwis' fourth-most emphatic victory and Sri Lanka's third-heaviest defeat. The New Zealanders had to leave Paarl to find their feet in the tournament - they scored 189/3 to beat Bangladesh by 71 runs at Newlands on Friday. So coming back to the scene of the crimes against their own batting ability took guts.
"With cricket you've got to be level because the game is up and down," Kerr said about the dramatic turnaround. "The key learnings were to play straight and be tougher with the bat. In World Cup play, belief and confidence are so important. You've got to be able to back your ability and perform for long periods under pressure. It was a disappointing start, but to turn it around in these last two games has been pleasing."
A chunk of the crowd, made up of spectators wearing All Blacks rugby jerseys, would have been just as chuffed at the outcome as Kerr. They call themselves the Cape Crusaders and their ranks consist mostly of brown South Africans. Their original adherents were not able to bring themselves to support teams who represented what was once the apartheid state. Their cause coalesced around the Canterbury Crusaders rugby union team, hence their name. The modern Cape Crusader is more concerned with being contrarian than political. They must have felt spare and strange shouting for a New Zealand team whose success would benefit the South Africans they detest.
Not all the South Africans present felt that way, as we knew when the cool evening air was rent by a throaty cry in an unmistakably Boland accent with the match far from finished: "Come on New Zealand, we need you!"
It wasn't what you would normally hear in Paarl on a Sunday, before, during or after the churches emptied. But it was a prayer nonetheless. And it was heard. All the hosts have to do now to reach the semis is beat Bangladesh at Newlands on Tuesday.
