Sharjah: Defending champions Supernovas will have to get past an upbeat Trailblazers here on Saturday to stay alive in the Women’s T20 Challenge.
Brimming with confidence after a crushing win over Velocity on Thursday, the Smriti Mandhana-led Trailblazers will aim for another win to finish with two victories and enter the final on November 9 with momentum behind them.
They will be up against Supernovas, a team smarting from defeat in the tournament opener against Velocity. Another loss would knock Supernovas out of the tournament.
Trailblazers came up with a stellar bowling performance to bundle out Velocity for 47 with England’s left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone, the world No.1 T20 bowler, returning impressive figures of 4 for 9 in 3.1 overs.
Mandhana will be hoping that the bowlers continue the good work against a strong Supernovas line-up led by Harmanpreet Kaur.
The southpaw will be aiming to showcase her skills and expect her batting unit to step up in a crunch encounter.Supernovas need a win and that will bring the net run-rate into play and possibly eliminate Velocity who have a negative NRR (-1.869).Velocity, on their part, will hope Supernovas lose allowing them to advance to the summit clash.
Kaur, the Indian T20 captain, will look to build on her performance in the tournament opener and hope Sri Lankan Chamari Atapattu continues her good form.
On the Sharjah pitch that has gotten slower progressively, the spinners will have a big role to play. (PTI)
