Vusumuzi Dube
Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Cricket Women’s regional T20 matches continued yesterday with the Northerns women’s team comfortably registering an eight wicket win over Southerns women at Harare Sports Club.
Yesterday’s victory was the Northerns’ second win in six outings. After winning the toss and opting to field first, the Northerns women team’s bowlers put up a brilliant performance to restrict the Southerns to just 113/5 in 20 overs before they went on to chase down the target in 11,5 overs, finishing on 117/2 to ease past their opponents.
In the matches first innings, it was Lindokuhle Mabhero who claimed the most wickets for Northerns women, finishing with figures of 2/28 in her four over spell while Nomvelo Sibanda and Kelis Ndhlovu took one wicket each for 11 and 15 runs respectively.
Beloved Biza top scored for Southerns women with 31 runs from 39 deliveries while Nyasha Gwanzura remained undefeated on 26 runs after facing 21 balls. The only other Southerns women batter that managed to cross double figures Chipo Mugeri-Tiripano with 24 runs off as many deliveries.
In their chase, Notherns women’s openers notched up a 99 runs partnership for the first wicket before Mary Anne Musonda fell for 43 runs off 23 balls. Her opening partner, Ndhlovu was caught behind four runs short of her half-century on 46 runs from 28 deliveries.
Pellagia Mujaji and Chiedza Dhururu went on to see the Northerns through, finishing unbeaten on five and 10 runs respectively.
Kudzai Chigora and Loreen Tshuma were the only two wicket takers for the Southerns women. Chigora gave away 58 runs in her four overs while Tshuma conceded 21 runs in her three over spell.
Despite yesterday’s defeat, Southerns women’s team has been enjoying a good campaign against their counterparts, the Notherns women’s cricket team, winning four of the six matches played thus far.
The regional matches feature some of the best female cricketers in the country.
After the completion of the sixth match, Musonda is leading the batting charts with 159 runs from three innings at an average of 53 and is followed by Mugeri-Tiripano who has managed to score 155 runs in six innings at an average of 38,75. To compete the top three in the batting leaderboard is Ashely Ndiraya with 144 runs from six innings as well at an average of 36.
With ball in hand, Loreen Phiri is leading the charts with seven wickets from six matches at an average of 17,14 and economy rate of 6,32. In second place there is Mabhera with six wickets from as many matches at an average of 20 and an economy rate of 6,21. Sibanda sits in third place with five wickets from six matches, with an average of 19,2 and at an economy of 4,92. — Follow on Twitter @brandon_malvin
Online Reporter