Trailblazers win maiden title after defeating defending champions

Trailblazers win maiden title after defeating defending champions

Trailblazers led by Smriti Mandhana won their first ever Women T20 Challenge trophy after they defeated the two times winner and defending champions Supernovas in the finals by 16 runs.

PERFORMERS OF THE DAY

TRAILBLAZERS Bat: Smriti Mandhana 68(49) D Dottin 20(32) Bowl: Salma Khatun 4-0-18-3 Deepti Sharma 3-0-9-2
SUPERNOVAS Bat: Harmanpreet Kaur 30(36) S Siriwardene 19(18) Bowl: Radha Yadav 4-0-16-5 S Siriwardene 4-0-22-1

AS IT HAPPENED

Supernovas won the toss and chose to bowl first in a high pressure match. They were playing their third final and Trailblazers on the other hand were in their second final. Trailblazers lost to Supernovas in the finals of the inaugural season of the Women T20 Challenge.

Mandhana – A Captain’s Knock
Smirti Mandhana looked rusty in the two league games but she put her best foot forward in the most important game of the season. Right from ball one, she looked positive and Dottin on the other hand didn’t have much to do. They were 45-0 after 6 overs.

Radha Yadav Takes A Fifer

Trailblazers lost their first wicket in the 12th over and after that, they completely lost their way and the credit for this derailment goes to Radha Yadav who picked up five wickets and ran through the Trailblazers middle order. The trailblazers middle order starting from number 3 scored 10, 9, 4, 1, and 1 run respectively. Even after a good start, they managed to put on board just 118 runs.

Slow Start Added Pressure
A chase in the finals is never easy and the pressure clearly showed in how Supernovas handled the chase. After losing an early wicket, the batters resorted to conservativeness and even a low score became challenging. They were just 28-1 after the power play.

Key Breakthroughs Helped Trailblazers Win
Supernovas kept losing wickets and particularly the spell of Deepti Sharma in the middle overs swung the match in Trailblazers’ favour. She took 2 wickets and gave away just 9 runs in 3 overs. Supernovas scored just 47 runs from overs 7 to 15.

Comforting Win In A Low Score Chase

Harmanpreet held one end but kept running short of partners and when the time for the slogging came, she was unable to deliver. Some clean bowling in the death by Salma Khatun and Jhulan Goswami ensured an easy victory in the end for Trailblazers. It was a remarkable effort by the entire bowling unit to win by 16 runs in a chase of 118 runs.Trailblazers win maiden Women’s T20 Challenge title .

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