Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 results: Alana King takes 7-18 as Australia thrash South Africa

South Africa have previously been dismantled by turnovers. In their 10-wicket demolition at the hands of England, left-arm spinner Lynsey Smith took on Wolfhardt, Brits and Kapp as she took figures of 3-7 while Sophie Ecclestone and Charlie Dean took two wickets each.

On Saturday, an inspired performance from King was their undoing, exposing weaknesses against spin, when batting first, and when their top order fails to fire.

By contrast, Australia advance to the semi-finals not only unbeaten, but supported by another player providing a decisive performance in the match.

King’s first two wickets were handed to her, with both Sune Luus and Marizanne Kapp attempting unnecessarily aggressive shots and holding down simple fielders, but there was little good luck regarding the rest of her spell.

She started with 14 consecutive dot balls, took wickets with four of them, and bowled 33 in total from 42 deliveries.

Four of her seven wickets were bowled, with Aneri Derksen undone by a flying delivery and Sinalo Jafta, Masabata Klaas and Nadine de Klerk falling victim to a catch and spin that went off the surface.

Relentless in her approach, the majority of her deliveries, including six of her seven wicket-taking balls, were good or late in the length.

King has gone largely under the radar during Australia’s campaign. Economical but unremarkable in the middle overs, her six wickets were overshadowed by all-round contributions from fellow spinner Gardner and Annabel Sutherland.

But on Saturday she reminded everyone of the threat she poses in the middle, as she contributed to South Africa’s 42-2 collapse to 97.

She has now taken 13 wickets in this World Cup and 25 wickets in just 12 ODIs in 2025, with the latter bettered only by Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana and Nonkululeko Mlaba, all of whom have played at least three more matches than the Australian and cannot match her average (15.52) or economy (4.34).