The first match of the Women’s IPL 2019 gave us all what was expected as the match went down to the wire, till the last over and the Trailblazers won the match by two runs.
After asking to bat first, the World Number one T20I batter opened alongside the World Number one ODI batter- Suzie Bates and Smriti Mandhana- opened the innings but unfortunately, Suzie Bates couldn’t continue as she completely mistimed a delivery from Anuja Patil that went straight to Jemimah Rodrigues which she almost fumbled but held on to it. Harleen Deol joined Smriti Mandhana and the duo started to build on healthy partnership. Harleen, despite not timing the ball properly, managed to rotate the strike and watched the Mandhana show from the other end. The pair added 119 for the second wicket. Mandhana, after scoring a sizzling knock of 90 off 67 deliveries, walked back in the final over of the match. Though she missed out on a well-deserving hundred, she will be happy that she was able to bat through. In the end, Supernovas managed to restrict Trailblazers for 140 for 5 with Sophie Devine picking up a wicket and Radha Yadav two wickets.
In return, Supernovas, a team with well-packed strikers looked all set to win this match. The 20 years old Ecclestone provided the first breakthrough for the Trailblazers as Priya Punia edged one to Kalpana who took an excellent catch behind the stumps. After her dismissal, Jemimah Rodrigues who had an extraordinary tournament with the bat in the U23 One Day League showed her skills with two beautiful boundaries off Jhulan Goswami but both Jemimah and Aththapattu were risky and they even had a few
On the other hand, Rajeshwari Gaekwad as always dominated the opponents and picked up two wickets and managed to produce a lot of dot balls which added pressure on Harmanpreet Kaur after Sophie Devine’s dismissal to Ecclestone.
With 18 needed off the final over, Harmanpreet Kaur managed to take the total close by hitting four boundaries in the over. In the final delivery, where Supernovas needed 3 runs to win, Jhulan Goswami used her experience to bowl one outside off and Kaur completely missed it out as Trailblazers emerged as the winners by two runs.
