Cricket news round-up – March 6: India and Australia reach final of Women’s T20 World Cup 2020

Cricket news round-up – March 6: India and Australia reach final of Women’s T20 World Cup 2020

India Australia Women

India and Australia will play Women’s World T20 final on March 8, 2020. Zimbabwe will host Ireland in April for limited-overs series.

Indian women to play first World T20 final

The hosts Australia Women’s will play their sixth consecutive T20 World Cup final on Sunday against a young Indian team who will be playing their first ever T20 World Cup final. Rain had the final say in the first semi-final as it was abandoned without a single ball being bowled and as a result, India qualified for the final followed by their Group A result. It was heart-breaking for England Women as ICC did not keep reserve day for the semi-finals of such a big event.

Australia win second semi-final

Rain did play a role in the second semi-final also. However, some play was possible and finally, Australia won by five runs in the D/L method. Batting first they posted 134/5 thanks to captain Meg Lanning’s unbeaten 49. Nadine de Klerk took three wickets for South Africa for just 19 runs. A shower during the break reduced the overs for South Africa innings and their target was set to 98 runs from 13 overs. The Australians bowled tightly to ensure that South Africa fell behind the scoring rate and despite Laura Wolvaardt’s 41 off 27 balls it was too much for them and finally they finished on 92/5 as Megan Schutt took 2/17.

Zimbabwe to host Ireland

Ireland Men will travel to Zimbabwe to play three ODIs and three T20 Internationals in April. This will be their first trip to Zimbabwe since the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers. Ireland won the last ODI series against Zimbabwe in 2019 when they beat them 3-0 at home and the T20I series ended 1-1. During the tour, the T20Is will be played on 2nd, 4th and 5th April, followed by the ODIs on 8th, 10th and 12th April. However, Cricket Ireland is also monitoring the current situation around the spread of coronavirus to ensure that it does not have an impact on this tour.

Rahim returns to Bangladesh T20I team

Bangladesh Cricket Board announced a 15-member squad for upcoming two-match T20I series against Zimbabwe. Mushfiqur Rahim who had opted out of Pakistan tour citing security reasons returned to the team. Rubel Hossain lost his spot whereas Nasum Ahmed was included to the squad as the only uncapped player. Mohammad Saifuddin is back after recovering from his back injury. The matches will be played on March 9 and 11 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur:

Squad: Mahmudullah (C), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Naim Sheikh, Litton Das, Mushfiqur Rahim, Afif Hossain, Saifuddin, Mahedi Hasan, Aminul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman, Shafiul Islam, Al-Amin Hossain, Hasan Mahmud, Nasum Ahmed