Scotland- India: cricket
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2023
Away series
T20 I
Malahide: India wins match, series
Rory Smith, August 21, 2023: The Times of India
Sydney : Spain should not have been in contention to win the World Cup. It did not make any sense. Their finest players spent most of the last year on strike. A dozen of them were not invited to the tournament as a consequence. Those that are here are part of a squad held together by an uneasy truce, working under a coach who can count on the loyalty — at best — of a relatively small fraction of his team. These are not the circumstances in which success is forged.
And yet, and yet: Spain are champions of the world, testament to an enduring truth of football, of sports. Talent can conquer absolutely anything. It can even take a team, one that had prepared for this World Cup in arguably the worst possible way, to the biggest game of all, the grandest stage, and then sweep it past England, the European champions, the favourites, the game’s new heavyweights, by a single goal, 1-0.
Spain, put simply, shone too brightly to be dimmed: the drive of Olga Carmona, the intelligence of Mariona Caldentey, the burning possibility of Salma Paralluelo and, most of all, the brilliance of Aitana Bonmati. Bonmati, the Barcelona midfielder, is the player who, more than anyone else, coaxed and fought and thought her way through the World Cup final, producing a performance that will rightly be considered a masterpiece.
Spain had spent most of the opening 30 minutes of this game painstakingly trying to pry open England’s defence, thoughtfully piecing together moves of intricate beauty and delicate complexity. Alba Redondo should have put her team ahead from one. Paralluelo might have done so with two. But the breakthrough came not from Spain’s brilliance — or not just from Spain’s brilliance — but from England’s carelessness. Lucy Bronze had wandered into midfield, the ball at her feet, in search of something to do with it. Spain’s players saw what was happening and may as well have licked their lips.
Three of them relieved Bronze of the ball. There was, now, a vast expanse of space — a plain, a savanna, a tundra — on the right side of England’s defence. Teresa Abelleira, brilliantly, picked out Caldentey, drifting unaccompanied into the yawning gap. She waited until Carmona, charging beyond her, was in just the right place. Her pass was weighted perfectly. Carmona’s finish was unerring.
Spain deserved their lead. There had been times, in that first half, when it appeared to be putting on a technical clinic. Paralluelo hit the post just before halftime and there was just a sense, as the players departed for the changing rooms, that, England had escaped just a little.
England coach Sarina Wiegman is not the sort to stand on ceremony. Something needed to change, so she changed it. Chloe Kelly, the player who had scored the goal to win the European Championship last summer, and Lauren James, There was no time to waste.
Spain, previously so composed, so assured, started to teeter, only to be delivered just when it needed the intervention of fortune. Keira Walsh gently, involuntarily brushed the ball with a hand as Caldentey attempted to slip past her. Jenni Hermoso’s shot was weak, easily smothered by goalkeeper Mary Earps. England had their reprieve. For the first time in this tournament, they could not make the most of it.
