Supernovas shines the brightest

This sprawling city may have hosted the country’s first-ever Nationals in women’s cricket nearly half-a-century ago, but it didn’t seem too excited about the Women’s T20 Challenge. Until Saturday night, that is.

An excellent crowd turned up at the MCA Stadium for the final. Supernovas won a memorable game by four runs.

It was the third title in four editions for Supernovas. If Velocity came so close, chasing 166, that was because of a stunning fightback staged by Laura Wolvaardt (65 n.o., 40b, 5×4, 3×6) and Simran Bahadur (20 n.o., 10b, 3×4, 1×6), with their unbroken stand of 44 for the ninth wicket.

When the duo came together, the match was all but over at 117 for eight with just 3.1 overs to go. After Simran hit Pooja Vastrakar for three fours in succession in the penultimate over which produced 17 runs, exactly as many were required in the final one.

Left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone, who had earlier broken Velocity’s top-order, gave away only 12. The target had come down to six off the last ball, but Simran’s ambitious swing only ended up in the bat flying out of her hands.

Ecclestone had taken two wickets in her first spell. One of her victims was Kiran Navgire, who had caught everyone’s attention with her stunning 69 off 34 balls in her first innings in the tournament on Thursday. Her first scoring shot then was a six.

On this night, she could not score a single run off her first 12 balls. On the 13th, she stepped out, only to be bowled by Eccelstone.

The main feature of the Supernovas innings was some fabulous hitting from opener Deandra Dottin 62, 44b, 1×4, 4×6) and skipper Harmanpreet Kaur (43, 29b, 1×4, 3×6), two of the finest strokemakers in the women’s game. Dottin and Harmanpreet had added 58 for the second wicket.

That was after Dottin and Priya Punia (28, 29b, 2×6) put on 73 for the first wicket. The West Indian was brilliant, of course, but she benefited from some poor catching — for a second game in a row — by Velocity.