The win in Guwahati was set up by left-arm spinner Linsey Smith, who only made her ODI debut against West Indies this year after a couple of stints in and out of the T20 set-up.
An immediate impact saw opposing captain Laura Wolvaardt caught and bowled in the second over before Tazmin Brits and Marizanne Kapp were bowled by beautiful drifting deliveries – making Smith the first player to remove the powerful top three in the format.
The 30-year-old found 2.2 degrees of drift on average, the most of any match in her England career, and was metronomic in her pursuit of targeting the stumps – which was also the case for the bowlers generally. They bowled 38 balls which would have gone on to hit the stumps, took six wickets with them and conceded just four runs.
When discussing what made Smith so unique and successful, fellow slow left-armer Hartley said: “She’s an in-swing bowler, really. She can spin it and she will spin a few, but in her action, she’s got a really low arm so the trajectory of the ball is constantly following you as a right-hander.
“You see her start wider, and the ball swings into the pads. We saw a couple of occasions with the South Africa batters prodding forward and the ball going between the bat and pad so with somebody like Smith, the inside edge is the threat rather than the outside.
“She gets way more drift and movement through the air than most other spinners, it is the dream as a left-arm spinner. She is an incredibly tough bowler to face because you don’t have many options – you can’t sweep her either, because she’s skiddy and that will challenge the lbw.”
South Africa could have presented England with a difficult opener, one in which they could not really afford to slip up.
But now, with Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to come, they are in a fantastic position to head into their games against favourites India and Australia unbeaten.
“Nothing went wrong for England today, everything was in their favour, but one thing that everyone needs to do is stay grounded and not get too ahead of ourselves about where they’re at,” Hartley added.
“It’s very easy to say, oh they’ll go on and win the World Cup if they keep playing like that but the reality is, not every game will be like that. Yes, enjoy the moment and enjoy the game and the day, because you don’t have many days like that, but the back-end of the tournament is very tough for them.”
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