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Preamble
Afternoon/evening/(very early) morning everyone. Welcome to the latest episode in what consensus has it is Australia’s procession to another World T20 title. South Africa stand in their way today, having put together some commanding wins in the group stage, bar their fairly convincing defeat by England. But Heather Knight’s increasingly brittle side messed up at the last and have gone home.
All of which leaves the Proteas as probably the second strongest of the semi-finalists, with their leading talents – such as Laura Woolvaardt and Tamzin Brits with the bat, the effective left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba with the ball and the always dangerous all-rounder Marizanne Kapp – all in decent nick, they should pose Australia their biggest challenge of the tournament so far.
For the holders have been formidable, twice bowling opponents out in under 20 overs and even in their narrowest win, over India, they never lost control. There’s match-winners everywhere you look down their line-up, even when key players are injured. One such, Alyssa Healy, was still doubtful overnight having picked up a foot injury against Pakistan but the Australia camp say they want to give her as much time as possible to declare herself fit to play in Dubai today. And the fact that Dubai, the best of the surfaces used in the tournament, is today’s venue gives us hope for some decent scoring rates in what has been a low-scoring competition.
These sides met in the final of the last World T20, of course, where home advantage didn’t count for enough for South Africa, and Australia carved out a 19-run victory, because that’s what they do.
We’ll be under way at 3pm BST/6pm local time/1am AET. Stick around.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2024/oct/17/australia-v-south-africa-womens-t20-world-cup-semi-final-live
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Publish date : 2024-10-17 13:06:00
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