South Africa Women: 175/3 in 20 overs
India Women: 70 all out in 17.3 overs
Result: South Africa won by 105 runs
Player of the match: Lizelle Lee
Explosive batter Lizelle Lee and captain Sune Luus sailed South Africa to a consolation victory in the last match of the T20I series, defeating India by 105 runs which is by far their biggest defeat in terms of runs.
The match which was played in front of a usual packed crowd at Lalbhai Contractor Stadium in Surat saw some swashbuckling hitting by the Proteas women.
South Africa after winning the toss decided to bat and made sure to make the most out of the wicket. South Africa made their intentions clear when Luus and Lee hit 4 fours in the 4th over of Mansi Joshi’s bowling. Thereafter the runs didn’t stop. The attacking pair looked formidable in the middle as they didn’t even spare the spinner duo of Deepti Sharma and Poonam Yadav. At the end of the powerplay, South Africa was on 57 with no loss.
Slowly the openers took complete control of the game as the Indian bowlers struggled to find their line and strengths. Lizelle Lee played an explosive knock with a strike rate above 178 which was studded with frequent boundaries. She finished with her career best T20I score of 84 of only 47 balls, hitting as many as 15 fours and one six.
Captain Luus on the other hand contributed to a handy partnership, anchoring the innings and scoring 62 of 56 balls. It was only in the last ball of the 16th over that Lizelle mistimed a ball by Poonam Yadav and fell to the youngster Shafali Verma who ran behind to take a good catch.
India tried to pull back the reigns after Arundhati Reddy took the wicket of Mignon du Preez, but not before the experienced batter had hit two consecutive boundaries of Joshi’s poor deliveries.
By the time Captain Harmanpreet introduced herself into the attack and wicket keeper Bhatia stumped Sune Luus, it was already the 19th over and much damage was already done by the Proteas batters.
South Africa finished their innings with 175/3 which is their second highest Twenty20 international score of all time.
In reply to this, the women in blue crumbled under the pressure of scoreboard. In the 3rd over itself, seasoned bowler Shabnim Ismail took both Shafali and Rodrigues out of the game, the later being hit lbw plumb in front. A series of dots followed and thereafter there was no coming back to the game for India.
Captain Harmanpreet who achieved a personal milestone by becoming the 1st Indian to play in 100 T20I matches, couldn’t make much impact on the game. Mandhana who seemed to have lost her touch in the series followed suit.
The first and only real partnership happened between Veda Krishnamurthy and Arundhati Reddy, courtesy which India was able to reach to a respectable score. But when Veda fell to Bosch in the 14th over, it was only a matter of time when the tail-enders bundled taking India’s score to only 70 runs, which is India’s second lowest score in T20 internationals ever. Veda was the highest scorer for India scoring 26 runs while Reddy contributed 22 runs to the scoreline. Among South Africa bowlers, it was Nadine de Clerk who was the highest wicket taker taking 3 crucial wickets with Ismail and Bosch scalping 2 wickets each. Shangase who was given only the last over of the innings to bowl needed only 3 balls to take the remaining two wickets.
Having already won the series, India had decided to leave out Radha Yadav, Shikha Pandey and Pooja Vastrakar to try out Mansi Joshi, Arundhati Reddy and Anuja Patil.
India and South Africa will again meet for the 1st match of the ODI series on 9th October at Baroda.
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