Top performers:
1) Rachel Priest- The Veteran from White ferns continues to shine in this season of KSL. Priest scored a dynamic knock of 89 in just 55 balls including 10 fours and 6 Sixes. Kiwi looked in a solid touch, she smashed all over the park with ease.
2) Heather Knight – The Skipper of the English team continued to have a good season, as she scored her 3rd fifty of the season. Her innings was of 51 runs in 48 balls.
3) Sonia Odedra – The medium-fast bowler from Middlesex picked up 4 wickets, which is her best figures of KSL.
Match Summary:
As Veteran Rachel Priest plays a dynamic inning, Western Storm continued their winning streak with 9th win of the season by defeating Surrey Stars by 77 runs at Guilford on Sunday.
Winning the toss, Stars Skipper Sciver opted to bowl, though they are out of the race for finals day, Stars were playing for Pride. Rachel Priest’s opening for Storm was off to a flyer, she started to dominate from the first over. She hit her first six in the very first over of the match. Sadly, Mandhana had to face another failure as she was stumped playing a big shot on the bowling of Vane Niekerk. With her dismissal, Captain Heather Knight joined the crease in middle. Knight and Priest had a solid partnership of 96 runs.
Priest completely dominated the partnership scoring maximum of the runs, she got her 50 in 34 balls, this is her third fifty of the season. On 89 missing century by 11 runs, she was dismissed of Vane Niekerk. From there, Skipper Knight took the responsibility of setting a good total and she was successful as she scored 51 runs in 48 balls, which helped Storm to set a target of 172.
Chasing the huge total of 172, as usual, the story of the season they had a bad start as their key batter Lizelle Lee departed for 1. This is undoubtedly the worst season in her KSL career. Her opening partner Dane Vane Niekerk too didn’t last for a long time, she got stumped trying to hit one out of the ground on the bowling of our own Deepti Sharma. Again as usual for Stars, Sarah Taylor and Sciver tried to build the innings both had a partnership of 44 runs before the former was dismissed on 34 by experienced Shrubsole. With her departure, Stars followed one after the other, the defending champions ended their innings on 94 by losing all their wickets in 17.5 overs. Sonia Odedra ended up as the highest wicket-taker of the match with 4 wickets.
With this failure, Stars are out of the season and Whereas Western Storm continues to dominate the season like a Boss and they are happily waiting for another team in finals.
Brief score: 171 for 4 ( Priest 89, Vane Niekerk 2 for 34) defeated Surrey Stars 94 All-out (Sarah Taylor 34, Odedra 4 for 25) by 77 runs.