Women's IPL 2020: Supernovas vs Velocity, Who won yesterday's match?

The top players of Indian domestic cricket, along with international stars stepped on to the field for the inaugural match of the Women’s T20 challenge after seven months away from the game. The Supernovas played against Velocity at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

The girls seemed a bit rustic and struggled to find their rhythm in the opening game, mainly due to the lack of competition and being time away from the sport for a long period.

In a nail-biting encounter, the defending champions suffered their first-ever defeat against Velocity in the history of the tournament. They lost by 5 wickets.

The opening pair - Priya Punia and Chamari Atapattu, started steady and scored 30 runs before the first wicket fell.

Runs were hard to come by in the powerplay and Punia tried to take the attack to Leigh Kasperek, however, unfortunately for her, lack of pace by the off-spinner resulted in her downfall.

Jemimah Rodrigues, who was the player of the tournament in the last season, struggled with her timing.

The team was dependant on skipper, Harmanpreet Kaur to bail their side, put an end to initial jitters and lead the team to a decent total. Coming in to bat at number four, she joined forces with Atapattu to stitch together an important 47-run partnership.

However, a flurry of wickets in the back end of the innings meant that the Supernovas were restricted in their bid to launch an attack in the final overs.

The reigning champions lost five wickets in the last 3.2 overs for just 15 runs and ended their first innings with a modest total 126 runs.

For Velocity, left-arm spinner Ekta Bisht picked up 3 wickets for 22 runs including Jemimah Rodrigues.

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Sune Luus and the bowlers set up the win for Velocity

Ekta Bisht was the pick of the bowlers for Velocity. Image credit - IPL

Chasing 127 runs, the girls in purple got off to a horrendous start as they lost Danielle Wyatt in the first over the innings.

Shafali Verma departed after hitting a full toss into the hands of Shakera Selman on the deep mid-wicket fence.

With wickets falling at regular intervals, a lot rested on the shoulders of Sushma Verma and Sune Luus. The right-handed wicket-keeper/batswoman scored 34 off 33 balls with two massive hits over the fence and inched closer to the target.

The duo put on a match-winning 51 run partnership and helped the team get over the line. With nine required off the final over, Velocity scampered home with a ball to spare.

Click here to see Women's IPL result 2020.

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Women's IPL 2020, Supernovas vs Velocity: Who was player of the match yesterday?

Sune Luus in action for Velocity. Image credits - IPL

While most of the other batswomen were struggling to time the ball, Sune Luus helped the team by scoring some quick runs down the order.

Making her debut in the Women's T20 Challenge, the South African player smashed an unbeaten 37 runs off 21 balls at a strike rate of 176.19.

Her heroics with the bat resulted in Luus being named as the player of the match.