On Thursday (27th February), India Women clinched their third successive victory in the ongoing ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 after beating New Zealand Women in the thrilling Group A contest and secured their spot for the semi-finals of this tournament. They are the first side to advance for the semi-finals of this tournament.
After winning the toss, New Zealand Women’s captain Sophie Devine decided to field first. While India Women scored 133/8 (20 overs), New Zealand were restricted to 130/6 (20 overs).
New Zealand Women innings: Amelia Kerr scared the Indians at late but just failed to reach the target
In the chasing, New Zealand Women were losing their wickets at regular intervals. While their top-order batters failed to provide good starts, the middle-order batters showed some fights, but most of them failed to stretch their batting to the big scores. The middle-order batters Maddy Green and Katey Martin scored 24 and 25 runs respectively.
In the late moment of that game, Amelia Kerr played some good shots and put back her side into the challenging situation. While they needed to score 34 runs in the last two overs, Kerr hit five fours in the first seven balls.
In the last two balls, New Zealand Women had to score nine runs, but her team just failed to secure that victory. While Kerr hit a four on the second-last ball, she only managed a single on the final ball of that game. Kerr finally remained not out on 34 runs off just 19 balls (6 fours).
All the five Indian bowlers got one wicket each in that second innings.
India Women innings: Player of the Match Shafali Verma guided the side to the fighting total
Once again the opener Shafali Verma played an important role to build up the India Women innings. She scored 46 runs off 34 balls (4 fours and 3 sixes) before losing her wicket in the 14th over. Only the wicketkeeper-batter Taniya Bhatia (23) was the other batter among the India Women to reach the 20-run mark in that innings.
Among the New Zealand Women bowlers, Rosemary Mair (2/27) and Amelia Kerr (2/21) took two wickets each.
