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England take on South Africa in the Women’s T20 World Cup in Sharjah
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England opened their T20 Women’s World Cup with a win over Bangladesh in Sharjah, but will have a different challenge against South Africa.
Heather Knight’s side turned to spin to beat Bangladesh, with all four spinners including in the match squad while their batting struggled slightly in the slow conditions on a used pitch in Sharjah.
Danni Wyatt-Hodge top-scored with 41, but the rest of England’s batters were arguably wasteful with their wickets and trying to score quickly rather than craft and innings and will have to be more clinical against South Africa.
South Africa beat the West Indies by 10 wickets in a game that had been expected to be one of the more difficult in the group.
The entire tournament has been a low-scoring affair, but South Africa chased 118 to win without losing a wicket against the West Indies, with Marizanne Kapp and Nonkululeko Mlaba already taking two and four wickets respectively in their opener.
Follow all the live action from Sharjah in the blog below
Here are some photos from the first innings:
Final over and it will be bowled by Sciver-Brunt! Who takes a run out off the boot!
It’s driven back at her and rebounds off the bowler’s boot and into the stumps at the non-strikers end, that brings an end to Luus’ innings.
South Africa are going for this, but they can’t quite get hold of the ball. They manage to score a boundary, a slightly quicker ball is flicked through midwicket for four.
Another boundary, it’s an inside edge through the legs and that will bring a second lot of back to back boundaries.
10 runs from the final over, and South Africa have set England a chase of 125 to win.
Ecclestone bowls Kapp! Kapp swings and misses, there was no pace on that and it has hit half way up middle stump, that’s a big wicket for England as she was scoring quickly!
South Africa race back for a second, a big dive is needed, but England haven’t been as clinical in the field as they would like.
Dercksen comes to the crease, but Kapp will face Smith first and manages to get the ball away for a single to bring the new batter on strike and finally bring up the hundred after 17.1 overs.
Dercksen’s first ball is top-edged but falls safe, but on the final ball of the over she smashes the first six of the innings! Smith’s last over goes for 11 runs.
Dean starts her last over, and starts it well with a dot ball. Kapp again goes big and over the top and dispatches Dean straight back over her head for a boundary.
She follows it up with another boundary over deep midwicket, that’s back to back fours for the first time in the game.
Dean has a wicket! The ball just goes under the bat of Tryon and takes off the bails.
Ecclestone is into her third over out of a maximum of four, and there’s a bit of turn.
Kapp goes for an innovative reverse paddle but cannot pick up a run for it. She goes up and over and it flies behind Amy Jones and will be well-stopped on the boundary to save a run.
Ecclestone strikes! Wolvaardt goes for a big pull shot and completely misses the ball which crashes into the stumps and brings Tryon to the crease.
Sciver-Brunt will bowl her third. Kapp crunches the ball down the ground for a boundary.
She will know all of these bowlers so well having played in the Hundred since the start.
Kapp has injected a new life into this batting performance and lifted the scoring rate significantly.
11 runs from that over.
Bosch tries something different, she reverse sweeps for a boundary! The ball races away for four, but when she tries it for a second time, Glenn strikes and Bosch is bowled!
That does bring the dangerous Marizanne Kapp to the crease alongside Wolvaardt, and these two will want to accelerate the scoring rate now.
Kapp is off the mark straight away with a quickly run two that almost turned into a run out with both players stranded at one end. But again England rue a missed chance.
Linsey Smith will bowl her third, and Bosch sweeps square towards cow corner, but it’s just two runs.
She paddles into the leg side for another single.
Still no boundaries have come off the bat in what feels like a very long time. But that was a bit more expensive, seven from it.
Glenn continues in this trial by spin and even coming down the pitch, Wolvaardt can only manage a single.
While Bosch is struggling with just seven runs from 18 deliveries, she adds another though paddling the ball up to long off.
Bosch improvises, coming across the stumps to try and hook down towards long leg, but again there is no boundary.
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