It was light work for South Africa Women as they eased to a seven-wicket victory against Bangladesh Women in what was both sides’ final group-stage game of the Women’s T20 World Cup 2024.
The second delivery of the game played at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai brought about the downfall of the first Bangladeshi wicket as Dilara Akter feathered one through off Marizanne Kapp‘s bowling. The final over of the powerplay was when Bangladesh got their first boundary of their innings, two in fact. They had quite obviously not made the full use of their powerplay as only 21 runs could come off it, three of them coming via extras. Shathi Rani had had enough and smeared a boundary followed by a maximum just three balls post the former, but was undone by a tremendous running catch by Anneke Bosch at deep midwicket.
The Bangladeshi innings never really took off. It took some excellently accurate bowling to keep them within bounds, as the third wicket of the innings was taken by Nonkululeko Mlaba, who ended the day with figures of 1/11 in her spell. A total of 106 runs was never going to be enough by any means, barring an outwardly bowling performance by the Nigar Sultana-led side, who herself could cluster only eight runs via boundaries in a knock which took her 38 deliveries to get to 32.
In what was mathematically the second delivery of the innings after Marufa Akter sprayed a down-the-leg wide parried by the wicketkeeper, Tazmin Brits got things underway for the Proteas with a cracking shot past backward point. Laura Wolvaardt, who was the leading run-getter in the tournament till when Brits overtook her, could not extend her tally as she was cleverly stumped off a tantalizing delivery. However, none of that was going to deter Brits and Bosch from going about their business. Overs 6-10 saw four boundaries being scored, each contributing half of the aggregate.
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Kapp and Chloe Tryon’s only job was to stick together and amble past Bangladesh’s total, which they did with ease. A combined effort of 27 runs from a delivery less did the job as the Proteas ended their group-stage on a high, capping off their third successful chase in this tournament. As for Bangladesh Women, they would be utterly disappointed in what seemed to be a campaign which promised so much more post them getting their season off to a winning start against the Scottish.
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