Scorecard<\/a><\/p>\nEngland roared into Sunday’s T20 World Cup final against Australia with a superb 40-run victory against South Africa at The Oval.<\/p>\n
On a brilliant night under the lights in front of a jubilant and expectant crowd, England overcame their recent struggles in pressure matches in the biggest sign of improvement under coach Charlotte Edwards to date.<\/p>\n
They wobbled early on, faltering at 23-3 in the fourth over, but captain Nat Sciver-Brunt hit an immaculate 75 from 47 on her return from a calf injury which had threatened to rule her out of the tournament.<\/p>\n
She shared a partnership of 133 from 90 balls with England’s other wise head, Heather Knight, lifting England all of the way to 169-5. Knight, equally as impressive as Sciver-Brunt, made 58 from 47.<\/p>\n
And while those two provided almost all of the runs, England’s excellence in the field was an all-round effort. <\/p>\n
Their fielding – for so long a glaring weakness – was outstanding. <\/p>\n
Sophie Ecclestone took a leaping catch to see off Proteas captain Laura Wolvaardt and break an opening stand of 43, and took a second tough chance later to dismiss Sune Luus. Danni Wyatt-Hodge also ran out Sinalo Jafta with a direct hit.<\/p>\n
As for the bowlers, Lauren Bell and Charlie Dean took two wickets apiece, Ecclestone, Linsey Smith and Freya Kemp one each, as South Africa’s hopes were snuffed out.<\/p>\n
Their wait for a World Cup win goes on but England, although they will be second favourites against their oldest rivals at Lord’s, have a real shot at a first trophy since 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T20 World Cup, The Oval England 169-5 (20 overs): Sciver-Brunt 75 (47), Knight 58 (47) South Africa 129-8…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-775226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}