Riding
on Deepti Sharma’s brilliant bowling performance and Harmanpreet Kaur’s strong
batting display, Women in Blue managed to sneak in a victory from the jaws of
defeat against the Proteas on Tuesday at Lalabhai Contractor Stadium in Surat,
Gujarat.
Winning
the toss and electing to bowl first, the visitors put up a good show as they
restricted the hosts to a gettable 130-8 in 20 overs. For India, the top
performer with the bat was its skipper Harmanpreet Kaur who struck a delightful
43 (34) smashing three boundaries and two sixes. 15-year old Shafali Verma who
has given the responsibility of opening the batting has to fill in the big
shoes of former captain Mithali Raj. However the child prodigy failed to
impress as she was outdone by Shabnim Ismail. Verma made her way back to the
dugout without troubling the scorers. For the Proteas, Ismail was the pick of the
bowlers as she struck with 3-26 in her four overs.
Chasing
a modest 131, South Africa would have fancied their chances. However, the
strong spinning combination of India trapped the visiting batters in a web thus
reducing them to 119 in 19.5 overs. The spin trio of Deepti Sharma, Harmanpreet
Kaur and Poonam Yadav picked up eight wickets among them, with pace spearhead
Shikha Sharma accounting for the remaining two. Mignon du Preez (59) was the lone
warrior in the fight and was just a stone’s throw away from taking her side
home.
Overall,
it was a thrilling contest between the two sides. The second of the three T20s
will be played at the same venue on Thursday.
Two
questions that the Indian team might grapple with before the second T20:
- Should Jemimah Rodrigues open the innings and child prodigy Shafali Verma bat in the middle order?
- Do the pacers alone have enough gas to run through the opposition's batting line-up if the spinners do not chip in?
Source: Getty Images
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