Good evening fellow travellers! One game today in the Woman’s T20 World Cup out in UAE, England took on a buoyant South Africa and, well, I’m not going to beat about the bush, England won……… huzzah!
The only game today saw a replay of the 2022 semi final in which South Africa pulled out a shock victory over the England Women to knock us out of the competition………..revenge is best served cold!
In what was looking like a must win game for both sides, South Africa’s young captain, the Bronze Star rated Laura Wolvaardt won the toss and elected to bat. Score board pressure.
Wolfie had another good captains knock with a solid 42 but the dangerous Tazmin Brits didn’t live up to her form from match one, getting out for 13. Bowling allrounder Marizane Kapp picked up a useful 26 and Annerie Dercksen showed some late fire with an 11 ball 20. The Proteas pulled up 124 for 6 wickets, a slightly above par score in Sharjah from what we’ve seen.
England, needing the highest run rate of the tournament so far, just over 6, will have felt the pressure of a must win game against the team who knocked them out of the last World Cup. Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Miai Bouchier opened the batting for the Lionesses. Miai, The Mighty Bouch, has been in a rich vein of form recently but no one can do it every time, today she was out for 8 runs. Batting allrounder Alice Capsey was next to the crease and struggled to get it away, falling for a run a ball 19.
At this stage of the innings things were looking a little tight. England were struggling to score, especially boundaries and SA were finding wickets. On the plus side Danni Wyatt-Hodge was still in and although not scoring quickly was doing a great job of holding an end together.
After the dismissal of Capsey, Englands, possibly the world’s premier allrounder strode out to the middle. Nat Sciver-Brunt, knowing the required run rate was now above 7 wasted no time. Running hard with Wyatt-Hodge and finding some elusive boundaries Sciver-Brunt caressed the ball around the park for 48 runs. Wyatt-Hodge finished on 43 and when all was said and done England won the game by 7 wickets.
A good victory like this will do Englands confidence no end of good, especially considering a lot of the runs came from the middle order, the same middle order that collapsed last week. England are now top of the group and very well placed for qualification. SA aren’t out of it yet but they will need to win some big games as I’m sure Net Run Rate will come into the equation towards the end of the group stage.
Tomorrow we have Australia Vs New Zealand in the Women’s World Cup and its day 2 of the England men, Pakistan Men test in Multan…….there’s much to be going at!
I hope you join me again.
All the best,
Nick
All The Cricket 
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