‘Can’t imagine how heartbreaking it is for India’: WIndies star shares heartfelt note after reaching women’s WC semis | Cricket

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.

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.