West Indies Women vs South Africa Women: Shocking 28-28 Tie

West Indies Women vs South Africa Women sits dead-even at 28 wins apiece across 64 matches since 2005, with three ties and five no-results. That tie hides a sharper story: West Indies dominated 2005-2016, while South Africa have won 18 of the last 32 meetings since 2017.

Head-to-Head Statistics Hub

In the West Indies Women vs South Africa Women head-to-head, South Africa Women and West Indies Women are tied 28-28 across 64 completed internationals since 2005, with West Indies’ historical edge eroded fast since South Africa’s modern batting and pace depth took shape.

Neither side leads outright. West Indies built their record in the 2009-2016 window; South Africa have overturned it since 2017, winning 18 of the last 32 meetings.

Overall Record

The ODI and T20I splits are compiled from ESPNcricinfo’s match archive and are approximate, because a handful of abandoned 2009-2010 fixtures carry ambiguous format tags in older records.

Win Percentage By Era

Pre-2017 (32 matches): West Indies Women won 20, South Africa Women won 10 — a 62.5% win rate for the Caribbean side.

Since 2017 (32 matches): South Africa Women won 18, West Indies Women won 8 — a 69.2% win rate for South Africa among decided matches.

The T20I Exception: West Indies Women remain the stronger T20I side in this fixture, winning roughly 16 of 26 meetings, including both bilateral T20I series played since South Africa’s ODI resurgence began in 2021.

Complete Year-By-Year Timeline

Every year the two sides have met produced a shift in this rivalry, from West Indies’ explosive 2009-2014 stretch to South Africa’s structural turnaround from 2017 onward.

Why 2018 is the hinge point: Hayley Matthews’ maiden ODI century (117) powered West Indies to a 115-run win in the third ODI at Bridgetown in September 2018 — their last dominant ODI series win over South Africa to date, before the tide turned permanently in the 50-over format.

Five Defining Matches

These five fixtures explain the entire arc of this rivalry, from West Indies’ World Cup high points to South Africa’s professionalised takeover.

1. West Indies bowl South Africa out for 76 (2018 T20 World Cup, Gros Islet). Anisa Mohammed and the Caribbean pace attack strangled South Africa’s top order, and West Indies chased down the target with seven wickets in hand in front of a home crowd.

2. Hayley Matthews’ 117 seals a 115-run ODI win (2018, Bridgetown). Matthews’ maiden century remains the largest individual ODI innings either side has produced against the other in this fixture.

3. South Africa win four of five ODIs in Antigua (2021). Shabnim Ismail and Ayabonga Khaka’s pace, backed by disciplined fielding, exposed a West Indies middle order that could not build partnerships — the moment South Africa’s structural advantage became undeniable.

4. South Africa win by 10 wickets at the 2024 T20 World Cup (Dubai). Laura Wolvaardt and Tazmin Brits chased 119 without losing a wicket, denying West Indies any repeat of their 2018 World Cup ambush.

5. South Africa’s 166-run demolition in the 2025 ODI decider (Cave Hill). Tazmin Brits’ century and a Masabata Klaas four-wicket burst reduced West Indies to 40 for 6 in a rain-revised chase — the biggest winning margin by runs in the rivalry’s history.

Snippet — what happened in the 2025 tour? South Africa Women won the 2025 ODI series 2-1, capped by a 166-run win in the decider, while West Indies Women hit back to win the T20I series 2-1 by taking the final two matches at Cave Hill.

Player Records Between the Two Sides

Deandra Dottin and Anisa Mohammed hold the outright T20I benchmarks in this fixture — 494 runs and 23 wickets respectively — while South Africa’s most recent standout, Tazmin Brits, has rewritten the ODI record book in a single series.

Batting Records (T20Is)

Bowling Records (T20Is)

2025 series standouts: Tazmin Brits scored 184 runs including a century in the 2025 ODI leg, the most by any player in a single bilateral series between these two sides, while Afy Fletcher’s 8 wickets led all bowlers across the ODIs.

Why South Africa Have Dominated the Modern Era

In the West Indies Women vs South Africa Women rivalry, South Africa’s rise since 2017 traces directly to Cricket South Africa introducing central contracts for women in 2013, followed by pay-equity reforms in 2023 that professionalised the pathway years before West Indies could match it.

The structural gap: Centrally contracted players such as Marizanne Kapp, Shabnim Ismail, and later Laura Wolvaardt built careers around year-round training rather than juggling club cricket and jobs, translating into deeper fast-bowling reserves and more consistent batting depth in bilateral series.

West Indies captain Hayley Matthews has publicly pointed to funding, not talent, as the gap holding her side back, and Cricket West Indies only signed its own long-term women’s pay roadmap in 2024 — roughly a decade after South Africa’s equivalent investment began.

Why this still isn’t one-sided: West Indies remain the better T20I side in this rivalry, winning the format’s head-to-head 16-9, because power-hitters like Dottin and Matthews convert bilateral pressure into boundary-hitting more reliably in the shorter format than South Africa’s more accumulation-based batting order.

How Home Conditions Shape This Rivalry

South Africa’s pace-and-bounce pitches reward disciplined seam bowling and have produced some of their heaviest wins, while slower Caribbean surfaces let West Indies’ power-hitters and spin options dictate tempo.

Venue patterns: Johannesburg and Cave Hill have hosted the most lopsided results — South Africa’s 96-run and 6-wicket wins came in Johannesburg in 2022, while their 166-run 2025 win came at Cave Hill, historically a batting-friendly Caribbean venue that still could not save West Indies once early wickets fell.

Pace-friendly surfaces have decided several of the rivalry’s largest margins over two decades. Bridgetown and Gros Islet produced West Indies’ two heaviest wins in 2018, while Johannesburg and Dubai have hosted South Africa’s biggest victories since 2022. That pattern shows conditions amplify each side’s core strength in the West Indies Women vs South Africa Women rivalry rather than neutralising it.

The 2025 Tour: A Snapshot of Where This Stands Now

The most recent series split honours by format rather than producing a single dominant side, reinforcing that this remains a genuinely contested rivalry rather than a one-way fixture.

Why the split matters: South Africa’s ODI depth held up under pressure, while West Indies’ T20I power game — led by Matthews’ unbeaten 63 in the series-levelling second T20I — proved the format where the Caribbean side can still consistently compete.

The Future of the Rivalry

Both sides enter the next cycle as genuine white-ball contenders, with South Africa reaching the 2025 ODI World Cup final and West Indies reaching the semi-finals of the 2026 T20 World Cup. Any fresh West Indies Women vs South Africa Women meeting now carries tournament-contender stakes rather than developmental interest, and both boards have said the fixture remains a priority for future FTP cycles.

What to watch next: No bilateral series between the two has been confirmed yet for the current FTP cycle, but both boards’ recent investment moves — South Africa’s pay equity from 2023 and West Indies’ 2024 pay roadmap — suggest the gap that opened after 2017 should keep narrowing rather than widening.

This head-to-head has swung from a West Indies-owned rivalry through the 2010s to a South Africa-dominated one in the 2020s, and the 2025 series split shows neither board can afford to treat the fixture as settled. The next series, wherever and whenever it lands, will decide whether South Africa’s modern-era grip tightens further or West Indies’ T20I resurgence becomes something bigger.

Read more: South Africa Women vs Sri Lanka Women Rivalry Breakdown

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