06/28/26 08:53:00
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06/28 08:52 CDT South Africa scrapes past Bangladesh and leaves India needing
to upset Australia at Lord's
South Africa scrapes past Bangladesh and leaves India needing to upset
Australia at Lord's
LONDON (AP) --- South Africa played its part and confirmed that India must take
down Australia at Lord's to qualify for the Women's Twenty20 World Cup
semifinals on Sunday.
On the last day of the group stage, India, the ODI world champion, and South
Africa, the finalist at the last two T20 World Cups, were fighting for the
fourth and last semifinal spot. Unbeaten Australia was safely through in their
group barring a massive meltdown.
South Africa labored to beat Bangladesh by four wickets in the first match of
the Lord's doubleheader.
India remained ahead of South Africa on net run rate but had to beat Australia
in the afternoon to overtake South Africa in the table.
By coincidence, the best batters on both teams were out to the first ball of
each innings. Juairiya Ferdous swung at and missed Marizanne Kapp and gave the
South African pacer her 100th T20 wicket. South Africa captain Laura Wolvaardt
was bowled between bat and pad by Marufa Akter. The pair of opening ducks
happened only once before at a T20 World Cup in 2018 between Sri Lanka and
Bangladesh.
Bangladesh chose to bat and made only 117-5 in the face of quality bowling by
Kapp (1-9) Shabnim Ismail (1-15) and Nonkululeko Mlaba (2-22).
Sobhana Mostary top-scored for Bangladesh with 42 and captain Nigar Sultana was
32 not out off 20 to become the team's leading tournament scorer.
Annerie Dercksen and Tazmin Brits gave South Africa a better start but wickets
fell regularly enough to make the chasers sweat. Dercksen was caught behind in
the 15th over, Kapp was run out in the 18th and Nadine de Klerk fell in the
19th. It took Chloe Tryon to grab the win with two miscued shots.
"We seem to always do this but we take the win," Kapp said. "A win is a win.
Even if it was very scrappy."
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AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
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