Sehrawat, Verma fire as India beat South Africa

CHANDIGARH: Openers Shweta Sehrawat hit an unbeaten 57-ball 92 and skipper Shafali Verma a 16-ball 45 as India began their campaign in the ICC Women’s Under-19 T20 World Cup with a seven-wicket victory over hosts South Africa at Benoni on Saturday.

South Africa did a decent job to reach 166/5 batting first, having lost the recent T20 series 0-4 to India. India chased down the target losing just three wickets with 21 balls to spare.

Playing the sheet anchor, Shweta, who hit 20 fours, dominated the run chase, although she would be disappointed a bit to miss out on a deserving century. India’s chase was set up by Shweta and Shafali, who hammered the South Africa bowlers inside the first seven overs.

Shafali got things going. She took on the South Africa bowlers and the duo raised 77 runs in 7.1 overs. Shafali hit nine fours and one six before she was caught by Seshnie Naidu off Miane Smit’s bowling.

India bowlers were caught by surprise as openers Elandri Janse van Rensburg and topscorer Simone Lourens (61-44b, 9x4, 1x6) clobbered them all around, scoring 56 runs in 4 overs. Sonam removed Van Rensburg (13) and Shafali, bowling off-breaks, bowled in form SA skipper Oluhle Siyo for a first-ball duck.

Brief scores: South Africa 166/5 in 20 overs (Simone 61, Shafali 2/31) lost to 170/3 in 16.3 overs (Shweta 92*, Shafali 45) by 7 wickets.

Young Comrade Shield brief scores: Parel SC 254/6 in 60 ov (Aman Jain 83, Usaid Cutlerywala 69; Shivam Dubey 3/29) vs

255/8 in 57 ov (Sachin Yadav 79*, Nutan Goel 45; Karsh Kothari 4/77) vs Dr DY Patil SA; Muslim United SC 195 in 58.5 ov (Dhruv Thakkar 79; Vaibhav Mali 3/55) vs

324/9 in 65 ov (Parag Khanapurkar 100, Hiken Shah 88; Puneet Tripathi 4/124) vs