South Africa Women vs Pakistan Women, 1st ODI: A brilliant bowling display from the visitors sets up a one-sided affair

The start to the ongoing contest between South Africa Women and Pakistan Women turned out to be an impeccable show of cricket. The importance of the ICC Women's Championship is of great value as the team that gains most points improves their ranking for the World Cup qualifier.

In the 1st ODI, after winning the toss, Pakistan Women decided to field first. The decision surely turned out to be a good one as the Pakistan Women's bowling totally squashed South African players who only managed 64 runs in total.

The fine display of line, length and impressive accuracy kept the South African batters glued to the wicket. Fatima Sana, a new addition to the Pakistan squad gave an early breakthrough to the team with a valuable combination of speed, movement and accuracy. Even though she ended up with a pricey economy of 7.67, she definitely exhibited great bowling potential for her country.

Pakistan surely seemed to have a good strategic plan of attacking the batsmen with a pacer and a spinner. Sana Mir, the most valuable player of the team again delivered to her reputation of being one of the best bowlers in the world, ending up with four wickets with an astonishing economy rate of 1.83. The young-gun, Nashra Sandhu well-supported her team by keeping the bowling as tight as possible, which is definitely one of her strengths as she ended up with a fine economy of 1.37 taking 2 wickets.

Nida Dar, another important senior player for Pakistan, kept choking the South African batters with a dominant display of dot balls eventually ending up with 2 wickets for a 2.40 economy rate. Additionally, Aliya Riaz, a great all-rounder for Pakistan, bowled superbly to restrict South Africa to just 64 runs in total with an economy rate of 3.00.

On the other hand, Pakistan's batting did not have a very smooth star. With such a low target to chase, Nahida Khan, who has over 1000 runs in ODIs under her belt and is one of the backbones of Pakistan batting, ended up being bowled for just 4 runs to a good in-swinger by Shabnim Ismail.

This caused Javeria Khan, the strongest batting weapon of Pakistan to step on the crease and build a partnership with the elegant Sidra Ameen who defended the dangerous looking Shabnim patiently to set the tone in the innings. By rotating the strike and playing confident drives, Sidra and Javeria wanted to put the pressure back on South Africa, demolishing any hopes of taking additional wickets while defending 64. However, Sidra got out cheaply for 10 runs after being adjudged LBW against the bowling of Marizanne Kapp.

This was another blow for Pakistan. With 28 runs on board and two wickets gone, the captain Bismah Maroof just had to support the set-looking Javeria to cruise through to the target. Scoring 12 off 17 deliveries with her classy batting, Bismah assisted Javeria to play openly and end the match with a good show of powerful fours. The current form Javeria is in surely dictates that she will achieve 3000 runs in ODIs in no time which seems to be a good sign for Pakistan.

Overall, it was a one-sided affair but a good start for the Pakistan Women team. It will be interesting to see how South African Women make a comeback in the following matches by tackling Pakistan's solid bowling.

Currently, Pakistan Women stand at the 5th position in the ICC Women's Championship rankings table with 14 points whereas South Africa Women stand just below at 6th position with 13 points. Winning and losing is surely part of the game but to compete with such narrow margins will surely motivate the teams to give their best and put up a comprehensive and competitive game of cricket for spectators. This will only benefit women's cricket overall. Surely, the following matches will be interesting to watch.