Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 27: India’s U19 women’s team delivered a commanding performance to defeat New Zealand by 8 wickets and go to the final on Friday, at the ICC Women’s U19 T20 World Cup semi-final in Potchefstroom.
India had earlier put on one of their best fielding performances, catching wisely and bowling wicket after wicket. They also slightly drew their lengths back after noticing that the pitch was playing slower, forcing the Kiwis to play more cross-bat shots.
As a result, several of the New Zealand starlets were caught behind square on the leg-side or at mid-wicket. At deep-square, the dangerous Georgia Plimmer (35 off 32 balls), who appeared to be bringing her team back into the game, was caught.
However, India was the one who initially caused the most harm. Mannat Kashyap expertly prodded Anna Browning out and caused one to dip and turn. Tiwari took hold of the edge at slip.
As she attempted to push the pace, Emma McLeod, New Zealand’s other opener, was then pinned in front by Titas Sadhu. Plimmer and Izzy Gaze (26 from 22 balls) worked on the repairs, but they continued losing wickets when they shouldn’t have.
Parshavi Chopra continued to do well in the competition by taking three of twenty.
India was also incredibly alert to any opportunity as they realised they were in charge of the match. The firing of Paige Loggenberg was a good illustration. Natasha Codyre offered a catch, which Hrishita Basu initially declined, but she swiftly responded to the attempted single.
With Loggenberg far behind her, she scooped up the starry ball and flung down the stumps at the striker’s end. That level of street smarts is what reduced New Zealand to just 107 for nine.
That was never going to be sufficient against a self-assured Indian top order.
As Australia and England compete in the second semi-final, India will now wait to know who will face them in the Sunday final. Verma’s charges have responded forcefully to losing to Australia in the Super Six stage and will fancy their chances of becoming the first team to win the ICC Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup.
