South Africa so far has had quite an interesting journey in the World Cup and except for the blip versus India, with a win over Scotland were able to extend it to a win against the United Arab Emirates that made it four points out of the three games which was commendable. The United Arab Emirates on the other hand will rue on some of their missed chances, nevertheless will be proud of their performance in the World Cup that saw them end up third on the table courtesy of a loss to South Africa in their Group D encounter at Benoni today.
The UAE won the toss and elected to field first. South Africa would have hoped for a better batting effort but their total was still defendable. Off to a brisk start, the opening duo of Elandri Janse van Rensburg and Simone Lourens were fantastic in their running between the wickets to keep the scorecard ticking but van Rensburg fell prey to Indhuja Nandakumar and soon enough with another breakthrough was Kayla Reyneke who was dismissed by Vaishnave Mahesh. Madison Landsman and the set Simone Lourens’ dismissal meant the Proteas team had to pull up their socks and late exploits in spite of Miane Smit and Karabo Meso’s dismissals, skipper Oluhle Siyo partnered with Jemma Evans till she was run out to help South Africa post 112/7 on the board. The USA had Nandakumar, Mahesh and Keny end up with two wickets each which was impressive.
The USA though had a complete batting collapse losing their openers Theertha Satish and Lavanya Keny early on for 1 and 11 respectively and with Mahika Gaur dismissed in the same over as Keny by Hlubi, the situation only got gloomy for the UAE. Samaira Dharnidharka was dismissed before she could get going and with Rinitha Rajith and Vaishnave Mahesh getting dismissed for similar scores of 6, the UAE had dug a hole that deep for themselves that recovery was impossible. With Archara Supriya, Siya Gokhale, Geethika Jyothis and Indhuja Nandakumar getting dismissed without much impact, the UAE’s innings folded for 67. Miane Smit who was also adjudged the ‘Player of the Match’ was spectacular with the ball scalping 4 wickets with Hlubi and Naidu also chipping in with 2 wickets.
4-11 (4 overs)
Miane Smit wins her first Player of the Match award👏👏#CricketTwitter #U19T20WorldCup 📸Getty pic.twitter.com/KekTbjXx6s
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) January 18, 2023
Brief Scores – SA 112/7 in 20 overs (S Lourens 27, O Siyo 25; I Nandhakumar 2/23, V Mahesh 2/22, Keny 2/10) defeated UAE 67 all out in 17 overs (S Dharnidharka 13, L Keny 11; M Smit 4/11, A Hlubi 2/6) by 45 runs
I am a first year postgraduate student pursuing a MA in Media and Communication Studies at Christ University, Bengaluru. I am a podcaster, blogger and an avid cricket fan. When not glued to cricket matches, you can find me submerged in books and thinking about cricket all the time.