After they managed to score 140 runs in the first innings, Trailblazers’ captain Smriti Mandhana was confident of winning that match against Supernovas.
On Monday (6th May) night, Trailblazers and Supernovas met in the opening game of Women’s T20 Challenge 2019 at Jaipur. Mandhana played an impressive knock in the first innings that helped her team Trailblazers to manage 140/5 (20 overs).
Captain Mandhana scored 90 runs off 67 balls with the help of 10 fours and two sixes. She had an incredible 119-run partnership for the second wicket with another Indian youngster Harleen Deol.
Later, they won that match by just two runs as Supernovas managed to score 138/6 (20 overs).
Mandhana, who also won the Player of the Match award, was confident about their first innings total. She felt that the track was slower, so the 140 runs were enough to win that match.
In the post-match presentation ceremony, Mandhana said, “The wicket was on the slower side and I felt 140 was enough, we thought we had 15 runs as bonus in the end.”
Smriti Mandhana spoke about the last over of the match
However, it wasn’t a comfortable victory for Trailblazers. Though Supernovas were losing their wickets in regular intervals, their captain Harmanpreet Kaur fought brilliantly till the end.
After their hard fight, Supernovas needed to score 19 runs in the last over to win that match. In the 19th over, one of their set batters Sophie Devine (32 runs 22 balls) lost her wicket. While the experienced Indian pacer Jhulan Goswami bowled that last over, Harmanpreet hit four fours in the first five balls.
On the final ball of the match, Supernovas required three runs to win, but they failed to score that. Harmanpreet completely missed that last ball and then Trailblazers ran-out Lea Tahuhu.
Talking about the thrilling final over, Mandhana quoted, “We wanted to have sweeper in and try and bowl the yorker, but she (Jhulan) wasn’t able to execute the yorkers and that’s when Suzie (Bates) came in and asked Jhulan to bowl wide of off stump. Our plan was to keep it wide and our spinners were excellent and it will really help us in the next game as well.”
In the end, Harmanpreet was not out on 46 runs off 34 balls (8 fours). Her incredible batting almost changed the result of the match. Mandhana felt annoyed to see that innings as an opposition captain on Monday night.
Mandhana commented about Harmanpreet’s innings, “I have seen her do such stuff from the Indian dressing room but to see it from the opposition was really annoying.”
With this victory, Mandhana’s Trailblazers earned their crucial two points. In this tri-series, Trailblazers will play their next match against Velocity on Wednesday (8th May) afternoon at the same venue.