England edged a little further up the Women's World Cup standings with a very comfortable and professional victory over Sri Lanka at a sun-drenched Taunton, in front of the best crowd (around 3,500) of the tournament to date. Taunton really is the ideal setting for women's cricket. It is the ambiance and the friendliness of the ground that make it work, which means the punters enjoy their day and they keep coming back. It helped, of course, that England were playing, and it helped even more that they are playing confident winning cricket. After the game skipper Heather Knight said that she was initially slightly disappointed to have let Sri Lanka put 204/8 on the board, after they had won the toss and decided to bat. Through some disciplined bowling and some decent catching from Sarah Taylor and Fran Wilson, England had reduced Sri Lanka to 145/7, but 8th wicket pair Ranasinghe (26) and Kanchana (34*) frustrated England for another 10 overs and added another 45 runs to the
In the 36th over of India’s innings today, Alyssa Healy threw in the ball, hard. So hard that she broke the electrical circuit in the stumps. It wasn't the only thing broken today. By the end of the 42nd over - a foreshortened game, today, due to rain - India had finally broken the Australian bowling attack. What’s more, they broke it so hard that - unlike the stump, which could be replaced (almost) immediately - it crumbled into nothing and saw Australia flying home, having failed to make the final of a global tournament for the first time since 2009. I say India. Really, though, today belongs to one player: Harmanpreet Kaur. She had walked out to bat in the 10th over, with India 35-2 - Smriti Mandhana continuing her run of low scores (caught at cover for 6); swiftly followed by Punam Raut holing out to deep midwicket. There was initially little sign of the onslaught to come. The first five balls she faced went: dot, 1, dot, dot, 1. The fifth, though, was crea
On a gloomy day at Leicester, the last group-stage match of the World Cup went right down to the wire, with Pakistan eventually bowled out for 206, just 16 runs short of their target. Chasing 222, and with 22 runs needed from the last 5 overs, Pakistan’s Asmavia Iqbal fought tooth and nail to get her side over the line, but was eventually left stranded on 38* after number 11 Sadia Yousaf was bowled by Sri Lankan captain Inoka Ranaweera in the 47th over. For Sri Lanka, the star was Dilani Manodara, who hit 84 - her best performance in international cricket - and finished as the day’s top scorer. Pakistan had started their run chase at a rather sedate pace, hitting just 33 runs off the 10 over powerplay, including playing out two maidens. They also lost early wickets, with Chandima Gunaratne (Player of the Match for her 4-41) removing both openers - Nahida Khan bowled trying to cut, and Ayesha Zafar getting a leading edge to Chamari Atapattu at cover. But a thrilling
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