Watch: Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues' Gesture For South Africa Players Wins Hearts
Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, etc. consoled the heartbroken South African cricketers after India's triumph in the Women's World Cup 2025 final.
- India won their maiden Women's ODI World Cup title by defeating South Africa by 52 runs
- Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, and other Indian players consoled South African players after the final
- Indian players' sportsmanship and empathy for South African stars won hearts on social media
Humble in victory and graceful in defeat, this is the motto every sportsperson tries to live by. The Indian team, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, showed the perfect example of this spirit after beating South Africa in the Women's ODI World Cup final on Sunday. As the Indian players celebrated their team's maiden World Cup title, heartbroken South African players struggled to control their tears. Indian players, including Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues, left their team's celebrations to console the sobbing South African stars, winning hearts all across the cricketing spectrum.
In a video and pictures shared by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on social media, the Indian duo could be seen consoling South Africa's Marizanne Kapp, Laura Wolvaardt and a few others.
India and South Africa both eyed their maiden ODI World Cup title, but it was only one who could prevail. India registered their name in history books as Shafali Verma and Deepti Sharma inspired the team to a 52-run victory. South Africa captain, Laura Wolvaardt, however, was proud of the fight her team showed to come this far in the tournament.
"I could not be prouder of this team for the campaign we had. Brilliant cricket throughout, but outplayed today (by India). Unfortunate to be on the losing side, but we will definitely grow from this. (On coming back from 69 all out and 97 all out against Australia) We did so well to put those couple of bad games behind us. We were either really good or really bad, but thankfully more of the really good.
"Amazing tournament for a lot of the players, and proud of the resilience we showed. (Balancing batting and captaincy) Probably did not have my best year leading into the World Cup and did not start it well. Overthinking, it was not good. It is just another game of cricket, trying to separate the two, and that sort of freed me up a bit to play my natural game and then focus on the captaincy at a different time," Wolvaardt said after the match.
India Women
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