Women's T20 World Cup 2024: Reigning T20 World Champions Thump White Ferns In Sharjah
Australia Women Beat New Zealand Women: The reigning T20 world champions hand the White Ferns their first loss of the tournament. Here are the details. Read below.
Australia Women Beat New Zealand Women: Australia Women make it two wins out of two in the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2024, as the reigning champions have their eyes set on retaining their title for a fourth consecutive time and create further history by winning the first-ever edition in an associate nation.
Their 60-run win over New Zealand Women in Match 10 now sends them on top of Group A, as they have all but booked their place in the semifinals, and will next face Pakistan Women on Friday, before facing India Women in their final group game on Sunday.
Australia Women Vs New Zealand Women, ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2024 | As It Happened
Electing to bat first, the reigning T20 world champions were off to a flyer, as Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney smashed the White Ferns left, right, and centre, and notched up 40 runs inside 5 overs on a really difficult surface of Sharjah Cricket Stadium in Sharjah.
This year's edition has completely suited to bowlers, as slow outfield and long length of boundaries have complemented the slow surface extremely, as runs have been hard to come-by.
After bowling a sensational first over, which leaked only two runs, Rosemary Mair was brought back into the attack, and the move paid-off as Alyssa Healy threw away her wicket by slogging it high in the air to hand an easy catch.
New Zealand Women were oftentimes sloppy in the field, as they dropped a sitter of Ellyse Perry to give the legendary all-rounder a lifeline, and at the halfway stage, things did not look great for the White Ferns.
The introduction of Amelia Kerr changed the entire course of the first innings, as the Kiwi all-rounder ran through the middle and lower order of the reigning T20 champions. By recording the figures of 4/26 in her 4 overs, she restricted Australia to 131/6 in 18 overs at the end of her spell.
Her wickets included the key scalps of Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Grace Harris, and Georgia Wareham, as all the four players hold the potential of single-handedly dragging the game away from the opposition.
Australia Women managed to score 148/8 at the end of their innings, but inspite of the late comeback from New Zealand Women, they had an above-par total to defend at Sharjah.
New Zealand Women were off to a sluggish start, as they lost Georgia Plimmer early to Megan Schutt and were reeling at 7/1 in 2.2 overs.
However, Amelia Kerr restored stability by forming a crucial 47-run partnership with Suzie Bates before the latter's dismissal on the first ball right after the drinks break, as she was clean bowled by Sophie Molineux, and followed her back in the pavilion after a period of 8 balls.
It was a complete debacle after that, as wickets kept tumbling down and New Zealand ended up suffering a humiliating defeat by bundling out for 88.
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