Grace Scrivens never doubted it. It didn’t matter that her team had only 99 to defend. It didn’t matter that the opposition was wearing the canary yellow of the senior side which has dominated women’s cricket for a decade, or that just three hours earlier India had chased down a similar total with more than five overs to spare in the other semi-final. It didn’t matter that this match, with a place in the first ever U19 Women’s T20 World Cup final at stake, was the biggest of most of her players’ careers so far.

“I honestly thought we did actually have enough on the board,” Scrivens tells wisden.com, speaking on return from South Africa. “We really had belief because we knew that India had got them out for a low score and they hadn’t really scored too many runs throughout the tournament. So we always had that belief, which was obviously vital.”

With no margin for error, Scrivens gave her players one last talk before taking to the field.

“I told them, ‘Back yourself and back your skills and just trust yourself. We can win this, and we’re still in this game. It was just making sure that, one, they believed that we could win it and, two, they had the backing of themselves – and me – that they could go out there and execute their skills.”

As Ellie Anderson bowled the first over of the innings, what Scrivens had envisaged in her mind started to unfold. Anderson took the first wicket with the penultimate ball of her opening over before Alexa Stonehouse grabbed a sharp catch off her own bowling three balls later. The unwavering belief in that team talk looked well-founded with Australia 4-2.

But, with a solid partnership developing to take Australia into the eighth over without further loss, even the most ardent optimist could see England’s hopes diminishing. With two of Australia’s leading run-scorers in the competition at the crease, Hannah Baker came on to bowl her first over.

“I didn’t have any particular plans really, I just wanted to bowl my best ball,” she says. “I wanted to change the pace a bit so they didn’t know what was coming down and they couldn’t premeditate any shots. Just keep spinning that ball.

“We wanted to be ruthless and keep the stumps in play and just do our game. Because we know if we back ourselves and back each other, then we’ll have a good shot.”

After sending two dot balls down to Ella Hayward, Baker did hit the stumps – with a turning delivery which pitched on leg. Off the first ball of the 11th over, Scrivens also took her first wicket of the match – completing the dismissal of Australia’s top four.

But it was Baker’s second over, in which she took two wickets and conceded just three runs, that changed the game completely. Suddenly seven down, the momentum had swung in England’s direction.

Watching the side he had guided to this point over the last three months, head coach Chris Guest, on the sidelines, was doing his best to stay cool.

“I was like the swan, I think,” he says. “I was trying to stay really calm but I was definitely flapping. I honestly believed at the halfway point that we would win the game. I spoke to the girls in between innings and just looking in their eyes I saw a serious determination. At that point in the tournament we hadn’t conceded more than 103 runs in a game. We knew that Australia had fallen short in one chase before that and I just felt like we were always going to really compete in that game. Then, obviously, the closer and closer it got, the more and more anxious it was.”

At the end of the 18th over, Australia had lost eight wickets but only needed eight more runs to secure a place in the final. The faith of both England’s captain and coach were being tested to the limit. With Baker bowling her final over of the match, a bullet of a throw from Ryana MacDonald-Gay once again provided the breakthrough England needed. Swooping low at mid-off and throwing down the stumps, the TV replay showed that Milly Illingworth was inches short of her ground. Matthew Lewis’ pictures of the moment capture a team elated.

“I think everyone was literally on their knees like ‘please be out’,” says Baker. “That was a massive game changer. After the tournament we did awards and Rhee won the play of the whole tournament because without that run-out it’s a different game. Yeah, my adrenaline was going through the roof!”

Australia needed four runs, and England needed one wicket. With the fate of the match resting on one ball, Scrivens took ultimate responsibility, bringing herself on to either close the game out or bear the brunt of the tightest of losses.

“I’ve been in that situation many times,” she says. “I’ve had to do it for Sunrisers, bowl the last over, and actually been on the wrong side of it. I knew what I needed to do in that situation.

“I didn’t have that thought of, ‘we were going to lose’, at that point. I just put that out of my mind completely. The only outcome I thought of was, ‘we’re going to take the wicket and we’re going to win in this over.’ That was all that was running through my mind. People have asked me, ‘how did you stay so calm?’ But I honestly just thought we’re going to take the wicket in this over so I didn’t even think about who was going to bowl the next really.

“I bowled a couple of bad balls, actually, outside off and got away with it a little bit. I’d bowled a full toss and I thought ‘you need to bring the stumps into play here.’. So I just went a little bit tighter and tried to hit go full and straight and that obviously paid off because she played around her front pad.”

As Scrivens hit Maggie Clark plumb in front of the wicket, every single England fielder turned towards umpire Sarah Dambanevana imploring her to raise her finger. When she did, one of the most gripping matches of knockout cricket you could ask for ended in euphoria for the young England players.

“It was mad,” says Scrivens. “I think the umpire built the suspense a little bit by waiting to give it out. But it was just mad when we got that wicket. We knew that we were going into the final and it was just surreal.”

“Literally everyone was jumping around like, what has just happened?” says Baker. “It was a crazy day. It’s probably the best game of cricket I’ve ever played.”

“The feeling after we won that game was absolutely euphoric, it was like nothing else I’ve experienced in cricket,” adds Guest. “Myself and the analyst and the other coaches were trying to stay calm but then when that final wicket fell, it felt ridiculously long from the appeal to the umpire raising their finger. But when that finger finally went up, there were some scenes on the bench and obviously on the pitch.”

“I didn’t have that feeling at the halfway point that we would be able to manage it,” says Guest. “From the batting perspective, I think that let us down, I think we actually bowled and fielded very well to make them take almost 15 overs to knock that off.”

“At halftime at the final we were like we’ve done it before, let’s do it again,” says Baker. “But yeah, India just got away from us.”

While coming home with a winner’s medal was the ultimate aim, nothing should take away from the experience and camaraderie the England players gained from South Africa. Being able to pull on an England shirt for the first time and compete in an international final is a massive step forward in the development of the next generation of young female cricketers.

“For a lot of them, that will be the only World Cup final they ever play in,” says Guest. “And what an experience it was. My own personal reflection after it was; ‘that’s sport isn’t it?’ The euphoria that we felt 48 hours before, followed by the despair in the final. You take those emotions, and I’d happily have that every day of the week if we can get those highs and lows of sport.”

Guest’s suggestion may or may not be true for his young charges. Perhaps some of them will one day represent England in another World Cup final. But it’s a certainty that the inception of such a tournament has helped so many to realise, at least in part, their aspirations.

“I grew up watching Charlotte Edwards on the telly,” says Scrivens. “To be able to then go and play for England, that was so special. I think anytime you can pull on any England shirt is incredible, but to do that in a World Cup Final was just something of dreams really.”