Women’s IPL finalists: The MCA Stadium was witness to a scintillating run-fest as records shattered on the second-last day of the tournament.
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During the penultimate match of the Women’s T20 challenge at the MCA Stadium in Pune, the Trailblazers have defeated Velocity by 16 runs, but fail to make it through to the finals, courtesy of a crushing defeat against the Supernovas in the first match of the competition.
After having posted the highest ever total – 190/5 in Women’s T20 challenge history, the Trailblazers also had to restrict Velocity to below 159 runs (to pip them on the NRR factor) in order to qualify for the final against the Harmanpreet Kaur-led Supernovas.
But the Velocity, led by the ever dangerous Shafali Varma (29 off 15) at the top of the batting order, got off to a fiery start yet again, as they posted 50/2 at the end of 5 Overs.
However, the MCA crowd was fortunate enough to witness an onslaught of the highest order from a certain 27-year-old batter from Maharashtra, Kiran Navgire.
The right-handed batter, who began her innings with a first-ball sweep towards the cow corner for a Six, smashed a 25-ball fifty – the fastest ever in the history of Women’s T20 challenge to help storm the Deepti Sharma-led side into the final, despite falling short of 16 runs of the target.
Her innings finally ended during the 17th Over of the chase, but not before she had tonked 69 runs off mere 34 deliveries, with the help of 5 Fours and as many Sixes, at a remarkable strike rate of 202.94.
Uncapped and unheralded, yet lit up the Women’s T20 Challenge, in Velocity colours:
15-year-old Shafali Verma in Jaipur (2019)
27-year-old Kiran Navgire in Pune (2022)
The Indian women’s domestic pool is deep. All that one needs to do is try to gauge it#WT20Challenge #WT20C
— Annesha Ghosh (@ghosh_annesha) May 26, 2022
Women’s IPL finalists
Earlier, a batting master class from Sabbhineni Meghana (73 off 47) and Jemimah Rodrigues (66 off 47), helped the Trailblazers post the highest-ever score in the tournament history. Their 113-run stand off mere 73 deliveries for the 2nd wicket was instrumental in providing their side a decent enough chance to make it through to the final.
However, with Kiran turning up, and with the Velocity crossing the 158-run mark in the 19th Over, the defending champions had to bow out of the three-team tournament.
Thus, despite all the three sides managing to garner two points each with one win and a loss each, it is the Supernovas (NRR of +0.912) and Velocity (NRR of -0.022) who are the two teams who would play the final on Saturday, May 28, courtesy of a better Net run rate than Trailblazers (-0.825).
The Velocity and Supernovas had faced each other during the final of the 2019 edition as well, when the latter had lifted the silverware for the second consecutive time.
