The third round of the ICC Women’s Championship continues this week with four teams looking to climb out of the bottom half of the points table and fine-tune their preparations for the ICC Women’s WT20 2018.
Sri Lanka host India, whilst 2018 hosts Windies welcome South Africa with all four sides looking to make up ground on Australia, England, Pakistan and leaders New Zealand in the race to qualify for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2021.
The ICC Women’s Championship sees all eight sides taking on each other in a series of three ODIs home and away. Following the ODI games, there will be crucial preparation for this winter’s Women’s World T20 event with a number of T20Is scheduled.
The West Indies host South Africa in Bridgetown from 16-22 September in a series that could see a change of positions in the points table. The home side have six points from six matches with South Africa just two points behind in as many matches.
'Everyone is excited and looking forward to putting into practice what they have been working on' – Stafanie Taylor 'Everyone is excited and looking forward to putting into practice what they have been working on' – Stafanie Taylor The West Indies captain Stafanie Taylor, who has scored 321 runs and grabbed 11 wickets in six matches of the tournament so far, wants her team to be identified among the leading teams but remembers that South Africa had the better of them in recent matches.
West Indies captain Stafanie Taylor: “With the ICC Women’s World T20 taking place in the Caribbean this year, our Board has invested in a number of training camps for the team throughout the year, and they have been going well. Everyone is excited and looking forward to putting into practice what they have been working on and have learnt.
“They (South Africa) have improved steadily and we have had some tough matches against them over the last few years. We had two unflattering performances against them in a warm-up game and then in the group stage at the ICC Women’s World Cup last year in England, so this should motivate us to perform at our utmost best and defend our home turf.
GUYANA Amazon Warriors ended a six-match winning streak by the Trinbago Knight Riders last night to squeak into the top two as the preliminary round of the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) ended at Providence Stadium in Guyana.
Guyana, facing a TKR team resting a couple of their top bowlers such as pacer Ali Khan and off-spinner Sunil Narine, comfortably won by six wickets after restricting their rivals to a modest 154 for seven in their 20 overs.
The victory saw Guyana (12 points) leapfrog the Jamaica Tallawahs (12 points) into second spot with a better net run rate. TKR, on 14 points, had already sealed top spot in the group. The result sets up an intriguing qualifier tomorrow at the same venue between the same teams but with Guyana suddenly with bubbling with self-belief and boasting the backing of a cricket-crazed nation in their backyard.
The Knight Riders, with a full strength team, easily took down the Amazon Warriors, last Friday, at the Queen’s Park Oval, but they just needed to look around to realise they were far away from home. Away games had been no problem for Dwayne Bravo’s team the entire season except for last night. The defeat was their first loss away from home for the campaign and Guyana suddenly look extremely dangerous on home soil.
Shimron Hetmyer, the youngest player to score a CPL century earlier this season, blazed a half-century and the 21-year-old dynamite looks unstoppable once his fuse is lit. Hetmyer lashed a scintillating 59 with three boundaries and five maximums.
A spectacular all-round show in batting, bowling, catching and fielding from Rovman Powell helped Jamaica Tallawahs complete the highest successful T20 chase in Guyana as the visitors romped their way past Guyana Amazon Warriors by eight wickets with 11 balls to spare.
Powell took three catches, including a stunning one-handed leaping effort on the boundary, to go with 2 for 21 with the ball and an unbeaten 55 off 34 balls in the record chase, putting the Tallawahs in second place on the CPL 2018 points table. Another loss by Amazon Warriors on Sunday night in their final regular season match against Trinbago Knight Riders would clinch a spot for the Tallawahs in the first qualification playoff against TKR, and force the Amazon Warriors to win two elimination playoff matches to reach the CPL final.
Green with Envy
Amazon Warriors went into the match with a new captain unveiled at the toss. Rayad Emrit, who had gone wicketless in four straight matches and six out of eight in the season, was dropped from the lineup with 24-year-old overseas Aussie Chris Green sent out for the toss. A batting order reshuffle was in the works as well for Guyana, in a bid to spark a better showing following a loss to Trinbago Knight Riders on Wednesday night.
Denesh Ramdin's second half-century of the season was backed up by a tight bowling effort to guarantee Trinbago Knight Riders' top-two finish in CPL 2018, as the defending champions held on for a nine-run win over Barbados Tridents at Kensington Oval. Fawad Ahmed's three wickets catapulted him to the top of the tournament's wickets chart and increased the Knight Riders' lead at the top of the table to three points. The Tridents, meanwhile, suffered their seventh consecutive loss to finish with the CPL's wooden spoon for 2018.
Chart busting Munro
Colin Munro had a modest night overall, comfortable enough to let his partners do the work after the New Zealand international has done most of the heavy lifting for the Knight Riders through the season. Chris Lynn blasted 29 off 10 balls in their 35-run opening stand while Ramdin did the bulk of the scoring in a 75-run partnership that gave the Knight Riders a fantastic platform through the 11th over.
Munro's 28 off 29 balls served as his third-lowest score of the season, and he had a pair of lives in the fifth over as well, dropped on 1 and 2 off Mohammad Irfan by Shai Hope and Dominic Drakes respectively. But his good fortune meant he went on to break Chadwick Walton's single-season CPL scoring record of 458 runs set in 2017; Munro now has 464 runs on the season with a minimum of three more games to go, in what is shaping up to be a Player-of-the-Tournament campaign for the top-order batsman.
Trinbago Knight Riders erased the bad memories of some early season woes at Queen's Park Oval as they stormed back to the top of the CPL table in an emphatic fashion with a 67-run win over Guyana Amazon Warriors. The hosts staked a claim to be favourites for repeating as CPL champions behind another Colin Munro half-century, the fourth time he passed 50 in six career innings against Amazon Warriors.
Munching for runs
New Zealand's Munro is on the verge of obliterating the single-season scoring record for the CPL, ending Wednesday night just 23 away from surpassing the mark of 458 set last year by Chadwick Walton. Munro cracked his fifth fifty in eight innings in the season, this one the biggest of the lot as part of a 135-run second-wicket partnership with Denesh Ramdin.
After the early loss of Chris Lynn, Munro plundered 10 fours and four sixes in his knock. Imran Tahir has been Amazon Warriors' talisman with the ball, entering the night second on the CPL wickets table with 13 but was smoked into the third tier over long-on by Munro. It set the tone for a night in which the South African legspinner went wicketless for the first time this season.
