Poms waltz into Women’s World T20 Cup final

ENGLAND marched into the final of the Women’s World T20 Cup with a commanding eight-wicket victory over India in the second semi-final at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua yesterday.

After limiting the previously unbeaten Indians to 112 all out off 19.3 overs, the English made light work of a po- tentially tricky target with an unbroken third-wicket partnership of 94 between player of the match Amy Jones (53 not out) and all-rounder Natalie Sciver (52 not out) seeing them home with almost three overs to spare.

That second result formalised another meeting of the traditional Ashes rivals in to- morrow’s final at the same venue after Australia dashed the hopes of titleholder and host West Indies with a crushing 71-run win in the first match of the semi-final double-header.

Alyssa Healy was again the outstanding performer with the bat for the three-time champions, her top score of 46 helping to lift the Aussies to a competitive 5-142 batting first. It was enough to earn her a fourth player-of-the-match award in five matches at this tournament after the 2016 champions were routed for just 71 off 17.3 overs.

That result was a massive disappointment for a huge home crowd but reinforced the consistent excellence of the top-ranked team in the women’s T20 game who by that result went some way to making amends for losing the final to the Caribbean side in Kolkata 2½ years ago.

Any hopes for a thrilling second semi-final also disappeared after the Indians lost their last eight wickets for just 23 runs after electing to bat.

England captain Heather Knight finished with 3-9 with her off-spinners.

Kirstie Gordon was another of the slow bowlers to capitalise on the conditions, and her spell of 2-20 included the allimportant wicket of captain and star batter Harmanpreet Kaur.