Women’s T20 Challenge: Smriti Mandhana’s Trailblazers beat Harmanpreet Kaur’s Supernovas by 16 runs in the final

Smriti Mandhana’s Trailblazers have won the final of the Women’s T20 Challenge on Monday, November 9, on the eve of the IPL 2020 final. Trailblazers (118/8) beat the Supernovas (102/7) by 16 runs, in Sharjah, to win their maiden Women’s T20 Challenge.

In their previous Women’s T20 Challenge encounter, on November 7, Supernovas had secured a narrow win against Mandhana’s side. Their superior NRR helped them trump Mithali Raj’s Velocity in reaching the final of the 6-day T20 tournament.

Having won the toss and elected to field first, Harmanpreet Kaur’s Supernovas were able to restrict the Trailblazers to a total of 118/8 despite skipper Smriti Mandhana’s formidable 49-ball 68. Mandhana formed a solid opening partnership of 71 runs with West Indies’ Deandra Dottin until the latter was dismissed by seasoned legspinner Poonam Yadav in the 12th over.

Until the point the left-handed opener of the Trailblazers was dismissed by seasoned spinner Shashikala Siriwardene, leaving the total at 101/2 in 14.5 overs, Mandhana’s side were looking good for a defendable total. Smriti hit 5 fours and 3 sixes in her heroic half-century.

However, after the skipper’s dismissal, wickets tumbled down for the Trailblazers with left-arm orthodox spinner Radha Yadav bagging 5 wickets to produce figures of 5/16 at the end of her 4 overs. After Richa Ghosh’s dismissal for 10 runs, in the 18th over, the



other 5 batsmen fell for single digits.

Chasing 119, Harmanpreet Kaur’s side started looking shaky right from the start with their highest scorer of the tournament Chamari Athapaththu falling in the 2nd over, to Sophie Ecclestone, for just 6 runs. By the end of the 9th over, the top 3 were removed Deepti Sharma leaving the Supernovas at 37/3.

However, the 4th-wicket partnership of 37 runs between captain Harmanpreet Kaur and the 35-year-old Siriwardene stabilised the chase for the 2-time champions. While Kaur kept it steady and slow, it was after Siriwadene’s wicket that she rose to the occasion and seemed determined to take her team to their 3rd title.

The dew factor certainly came into play in the second half of Supernovas’ chase and it was evident in their batting. The final thing was keeping their calm under pressure and much of it was depending on the captain, evidently limping, herself at the crease.

In fact, it wasn’t the limping Harmanpreet but Anuja Patil who fell prey to a run out by Salma Khatun in her over. In the very second delivery, Harmanpreet was stunned by Khatun and she walked off with 30 runs off 36. Another nail in the coffin for the Supernovas in the same over, by Salma Khatun, came as Pooja Vastrakar fell for a golden duck leaving Supernovas to chase 24 runs in the final overs. Their chase came to an end at 102/7 in the 20th over with Mandhana's team winning by 16 runs.