Melbourne Renegades team of Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemima Rodriguez won their first match. (Photo: Renegades)
The Indian Women’s Cricket Team’s tour of Australia may have ended, but some of the team’s key players are still in this country. Reason- Women’s Big Bash League. 8 players including Indian T20 team captain Harmanpreet Kaur and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana are participating in this tournament and almost all of them have got a chance to take the field once. Although the league didn’t start well for everyone, Harmanpreet Kaur, Jemima Rodriguez and Richa Ghosh showed strong performance in their personal debut in the tournament. Especially Jemima and Harmanpreet Kaur, whose all-round performance led their team Melbourne Renegades (MR) to a spectacular victory.
Hosts Hobart Hurricanes face Melbourne on Saturday 16 October in the first part of the tournament being played in Hobart. Indian players in both the teams were part of this match. While Harmanpreet was on the field for Melbourne, Richa got a chance in the playing XI for Hobart. Richa, who made some strong shots in the T20 series against Australia, showed her aggressive game here as well. Batting first, Hobart’s team was facing difficulties in scoring runs quickly, but Richa showed her strength.
Richa’s strong batting, Harmanpreet applied the break
The young Indian wicket-keeper batsman started collecting runs quickly as soon as he came to the crease and worked to salvage Hobart’s troubled innings. He scored 2 fours and a six in his innings. Then Harmanpreet, who came on the bowling, returned Richa to the pavilion. Richa had scored 21 runs in 14 balls with the help of one six and two fours in her innings. Hobart’s team was reduced to just 121 runs in 20 overs. Harmanpreet while bowling took one wicket after spending 20 runs in three overs.
Good innings from Jemima, finishing touch from Harmanpreet
In response, chasing a target of 122 runs, Jemima and Renegades captain Sophie Molineau (16) put on a 22-run partnership for the first wicket for Renegades. Jemima played an innings of 33 runs including two fours and a six and during this 68-run partnership with Courtney Webb (31) for the second wicket put the team in a strong position.
Although the team was in trouble due to the fall of three wickets within seven runs, but after showing his excellence in bowling, Harmanpreet also used the experience in batting and scored an unbeaten 24 runs in 19 balls with the help of a four and a six. Won by wicket. At the same time, Richa, after showing amazing with the bat, also showed flair in the fielding and also scored a run out by hitting a straight throw in the stumps.
Also read: WBBL: The Indian legends played a breathless game in the very first match, failed themselves and the team also failed miserably
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