Women’s T20 Challenge: Harmanpreet Kaur Reveals The Turning Point Of The Tournament Opener
May 7, 2019 at 9:55 AM
Supernovas’ captain Harmanpreet Kaur was confident of finishing their match successfully against Trailblazers on Monday (6th May) night. After that game, she revealed the turning point of that contest.
It was the opening match of Women’s T20 Challenge 2019 where Supernovas faced Trailblazers at Jaipur. After winning the toss, Harmanpreet Kaur sent Trailblazers to bat first.
With an impressive batting performance, Trailblazers’ captain Smriti Mandhana guided her team to the challenging total. The left-handed opening batter scored 90 runs off 67 balls (10 fours and three sixes) in the first innings. That innings helped her side to manage 140/5 in 20 overs.
In reply, Supernovas managed to score 138/6 (20 overs) in the second innings. Harmanpreet fought brilliantly till the end of the game but just failed to secure an incredible victory.
In the final over of that match, Supernovas had to score 19 runs to win that match, The set batter Harmanpreet hit four fours to Jhulan Goswami in the first five balls of the final over. While they needed to score three more runs on the last ball of the match, Harmanpreet failed to manage that. She remained not out on 46 runs off 34 balls (8 fours).
Earlier in the 19th over, the left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone bowled a brilliant over. While she conceded only two runs in that crucial over, she also dismissed another set batswoman Sophie Devine (32 runs off 22 balls).
Harmanpreet believes that the 19th over was the turning point of that game. Otherwise, she was confident of winning that match.
In the post-match presentation ceremony, Harmanpreet said, “I knew if I was going to play till the end, I had the confidence to win but Sophie bowled the 19th over well and that changed it for us.”
Overall, I am really happy both the teams played well tonight – Harmanpreet Kaur
Coming to the first innings, Trailblazers only managed to score 52/1 in the first ten overs. However, the 119 runs partnership for the second wicket between Mandhana and Harleen Deol ultimately helped Trailblazers to secure a challenging first innings total.
Meanwhile, Supernovas had no 50+ partnership as they lost their wickets at regular intervals. Most of their batters failed to capitalise their starts in that innings.
Harmanpreet believes that regularly losing their set batters were the major issues on that night. However, she is happy with the overall performances during this match.
She added, “I think we bowled well in the first ten overs, but we didn’t execute our plans in the last 10. When the ball comes on to the bat, it is hard to get the set batsmen out. I think we threw wickets away when we were set and that was the major problem today. Overall, I am really happy both the teams played well tonight.”
Supernovas will play their next match of this tournament on Thursday (9th May) night. In that match, they will face Mithali Raj-led Velocity. It will be a must-win game for Supernovas and they may have to think about their net run-rate too if Velocity beat Trailblazers in their earlier match.