Supernovas beat Trailblazers by 49 runs in opening match
Pooja Vastrakar scalped four wickets, giving just 12 runs in her best haul in T20 as Supernovas registered a 49-run win over Trailblazers in the opening match of the Women's T20 Challenge on Monday.
The 22-year-old Pooja picked crucial wickets of Smriti Mandhana, Hayley Matthews, Sophia Dunkley, and Salma Khatun in two separate spells to shatter the batting line-up of the defending champions.
England's Sophie Ecclestone and Australia's Alana King took two wickets each as TRL could score just 114/9 in 20 overs.
The Supernovas had earlier scored the tournament's highest-ever score of 163 after opting to bat first.
Trailblazers made a strong start with the openers Mandhana and Matthews putting on 39 runs in five overs.
Vastrakar's brilliant bowling landed TRL in deep trouble.
Wickets kept on tumbling in quick succession as Sharmin Akhter was out for a duck to be King's first victim of the day.
Runs were hard to come by for Trailblazers as they reached 71/4 at the halfway mark. But two quick wickets in the 11th over bowled by Ecclestone virtually ended the contest.
Ecclestone had Richa Gosh off the second ball of the over and Arundhati Reddy was run out in the next delivery.
Earlier, Supernovas captain Kaur smashed 37 off 29 balls while Harleen Deol and Deandra Dottin added 35 and 32 respectively.
They, however, lost five wickets in the last two overs for just eight runs.
Matthews picked 3 wickets, giving away 29 runs while Salma Khatun scalped 2 wickets.
The SPN had started with a bang by posting the league's best-ever power-play score of 58/1 with opener Dottin hammering 32 off 17 balls.
The other opener Priya Punia continued a bit longer before she was out in the eighth over. Young Deol showed tremendous form and shared 37 runs for the third wicket with captain Kaur.
She hit Matthews for consecutive fours in the eighth over but could not convert her start to a big score, getting out in the 12th over.
Vastrakar and Kaur were out in the space of three balls in the 19th over before Supernovas lost another three wickets in the dramatic final over.
(Inputs by PTI)
