Rahul Tiwari
khelja|19-10-2024
The line-up for the final of the Women's T20 World Cup 2024 being played in UAE has been decided. South Africa will face two-time runner-up New Zealand in the title match to be held on Sunday 20 October. In the second semi-final played on Friday, New Zealand defeated West Indies by 8 runs on the strength of its spinners. The excellent bowling of Eden Carson and Amelia Carr overshadowed the amazing all-round performance of West Indies' Deandra Dottin and took the Kiwis to the final after 14 years. Earlier, the team had reached the finals of both the World Cups in 2009 and 2010 but had to face defeat both times. West Indies' dream of winning the title for the second time was shattered.
In this low-scoring semi-final played in Sharjah on Friday, 18 October, the batsmen of both the teams had to struggle to score runs. New Zealand batted first and could score only 128 runs after losing 9 wickets in 20 overs. For New Zealand, opener Georgia Plimmer scored the highest score of 33 runs, while Suzie Bates also played an inning of 26 runs. However, Bates spent 28 balls. Team captain Sophie Devine also could not make much impact and was out on 12 runs.
Although the New Zealand team had scored 48 runs in the first 8 overs, but after that the pace of runs started decreasing and at one time it seemed difficult for the team to even reach 120 runs. At such a time, Brook Halliday scored 18 runs in just 9 balls, while Isabella Gage also took the team to this stage by scoring 20 runs in 14 balls. The main reason why the Kiwi team could not reach a big score was Dottin, who spent only 22 runs in 4 overs and took 4 wickets.
(News is being updated)