SL Women vs SA Women, 18th Match at Colombo, Women's World Cup, Oct 17 2025 - Match Result

11.15pm So South Africa go second with this win, although England could overtake them with a win in their game in hand. But South Africa won't worry about all that for now and be happy with a very impressive performance. As Wolvaardt said, it's not easy to stay switched on through a break in the game like that, but they did regroup quickly and then were nearly seamless. That's all from us today, join us tomorrow for New Zealand taking on Pakistan. That's also in Colombo, so weather-watching is a theme that'll continue. Anyway, for now, it's Abhimanyu signing off on behalf of Ashish, Chandan and Sudeep. Goodnight!

Laura Wolvaardt is the POTM: "Very relieved we got a game in the end. It was frustrating sitting out for four or five hours but happy with the two points. We just treated it as a normal T20 game and wanted to get ahead of the game as soon as we could and not leave it late. Went at it with the same intensity as a T20 game. That ball was a bar of soap when we were bowling but it came on nicely, so it was good when we were batting. Our normal death bowlers were bowled out already so we had to bowl some spin at the end but they did really well. In a World Cup it's a bit different, lot of preparation as a captain. But when I'm out there, I'm just watching the ball and trying to hit it as well as I can."

Some more quotes from Wolvaardt: "Very glad it worked out as it did and we were able to get back on the field. [The opening stand] It's something we've definitely been speaking about. We haven't had the best tournament as an opening pair so it was great to put on a 100-run stand. I think we are still searching for that perfect game as a team. Sometimes the top order has fired, sometimes the middle order. We need to come together. We've been a bit loose with the ball in the death overs but we did that better today. It's tough to stay switched on, you could see we weren't as switched on when we just came back after the break but we were able to regroup."

Chamari Athapaththu: "We can't control thoe things and results haven't gone our way. We have two more games and we want to play well and win those and finish as high as possible. We discussed that we had a good game in the last game so we decided to bat first and unfortunately the rain affected the game. The ball was too hard to grip, especially for the spinners. And we are dependent on spin so we struggled. These kind of things happened in the middle unfortunately. As a team we'll stick with our plans in the next game. As a team we have to play positive and fearless cricket. And we need to take the smart options as a batting unit."

11.02pm After two close-fought games where their middle order rescued them, South Africa's openers have powered them to a commanding 10-wicket win in Colombo, after they were almost robbed of a point by rain. Wolvaardt and Brits followed up a very good bowling display by finishing their 121-run chase with a little over five overs to spare after the game was reduced to 20 overs a side. It was a struggle for bowlers and fielders of both sides after the rain due to the wet, slippery ball and outfield, but Sri Lanka couldn't get enough on the board and Wolvaardt and Brits made short work of their bowling. Klaas gave them a good start with the key wicket of Athapaththu among her two. But then rain came with 12 overs played and threatened to wash the game out. But excellent work from the groundstaff meant we got a game in at the last possible minute and the weather Gods played nice after that. Sri Lanka added 59 runs in the eight overs they had, but it proved to be not quite enough.

Ninad: "What if rain comes when SA is two runs away?" - Then it's all too familiar heartbreak for SA

Wathsala now

Namooh with a stat update: Most partnership runs by a pair in a calendar year in W-ODI, Wolvaardt - Brits 2nd now. Here is the list