Scorecard<\/a><\/p>\nNat Sciver-Brunt scored 57 as England concluded their T20 World Cup preparation by holding their nerve in a thrilling five-run win over India. <\/p>\n
Chasing 172 in Cardiff, India slumped to 87-5, and with an unlikely 38 required off the last two overs, Richa Ghosh whacked 21 off Issy Wong’s penultimate over and then a six and a four off Linsey Smith to leave six required off three balls. <\/p>\n
But Smith won the battle to have Ghosh stumped for a sensational 68 from 36 balls and then removed Renuka Singh Thakur to secure a confidence-boosting win before the World Cup opener against Sri Lanka on Friday. <\/p>\n
Sciver-Brunt spent welcome time in the middle, and alongside Amy Jones’ fluent 64 at the top of the order and a late cameo of 30 from 12 balls from all-rounder Dani Gibson, England posted a competitive 171-6.<\/p>\n
The skipper had made just three in the previous warm-up against Australia, which England lost by five wickets, but has now alleviated some concerns about her lack of game time before the tournament. <\/p>\n
The Australia match on Monday was Sciver-Brunt’s first international appearance this summer as she has been managing a calf injury.<\/p>\n
After Danni Wyatt-Hodge was dismissed early again for just three, the newly promoted Jones and Sciver-Brunt added 70 for the second wicket, before India wrestled back some control in the middle overs with three quick wickets. <\/p>\n
Jones was bowled by Shafali Verma before Alice Capsey and Freya Kemp also fell cheaply to spin, but the form of power-hitter Gibson at the death was another tick in the box for head coach Charlotte Edwards’ gameplan. <\/p>\n
Her counter-attacking knock included four fours and a six with 19 coming from the final over to ensure England did not lose momentum after Sciver-Brunt fell with seven balls to go. <\/p>\n
Gibson also took two wickets as the hosts again rotated their bowlers, resting seamer Lauren Bell and giving more overs to Tilly Corteen-Coleman, Wong and Lauren Filer, while reserve keeper Capsey replaced Jones behind the stumps. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ICC Women’s T20 World Cup warm-up, Cardiff England 171-6 (20 overs): Sciver-Brunt 57 (45); Patil 2-29 India 166…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-631332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}