Jemimah Rodrigues scored 77 runs against Velocity (Source:IPL)Supernovas emerged victoriously beating Velocity by 12 runs and qualified for the Women’s T20 Challenge 2019. Chasing a target of 143, Velocity batters realised that it’s more realistic to go qualify for the final first than winning the match. Mithali Raj and Veda Krishnamurthy’s 53-run partnership could not win the match but helped them get past the 117-run mark to book a berth in finals.
Toss: Velocity won the toss and elected to bowl first.
First innings: Supernovas openers got off to a decent start with Priya Punia and Chamari Athapaththu opening the innings. Punia departed in the powerplay overs with Rodrigues walking in to bat. The 18-year-old shared a 55-run partnership with Athapaththu. The Mumbai youngster single-handedly changed the course the match of the match with her first half-century. She scored 77 runs off 48 deliveries including 10 fours and 1 six.
It’s her highest T20 score. The youngster became the second batter in the tournament to score a half-century after Smriti Mandhana. She took Supernovas’ score to 142 for 3 wickets. However, Velocity bowlers slowed down the scoring rate towards the end giving just nine runs in last two overs.
Second innings:
Chasing a target of 143, Velocity got off to a horrible start losing two wickets in powerplay overs with no momentum whatsoever. Spinners did the trick for Supernovas in the middle overs keeping the pressure on despite Danielle Wyatt’s fightback. Poonam Yadav got the prized wicket of in-form English batter knocking her over in 12th over. She missed out on her half-century once again scoring 43 runs off 33 balls starring 4 fours and 2 sixes.
Mithali-Wyatt’s 56-run partnership kept them alive in the run chase. But Mithali and Veda Krishnamurthy’s main motive was to qualify for the finals by making sure that they breach the 117-run mark and knock out Trailblazers out of the final’s race. Mithali-Veda were happy to get past the magic number in the 19th over instead of going all guns blazing to chase the target.
Brief Scorecard: Supernovas 142/3 (Jemimah Rodrigues 77, Chamari Athapaththu 31; Amelia Kerr 2/21) beat Velocity 130/3 (Danielle Wyatt 43, Mithali Raj; Poonam Yadav 1/13) by 12 runs.
