T20 World Cup, Group 1, Edgbaston <\/p>\n
Australia 172-8 (20 overs): Litchfield 50 (24), Perry 36 (26); Mlaba 2-22<\/p>\n
South Africa 107 (16.4 overs): Wolvaardt 44 (39); Wareham 3-13<\/p>\n
Australia won by 65 runs<\/p>\n
Scorecard<\/a> Tables<\/a><\/p>\n Australia opened their T20 World Cup campaign with a 65-run victory over fellow contenders South Africa to lay down an early marker in Group One.<\/p>\n With 50-over champions India also in this pool, making a tough battle for the two semi-final spots likely, Australia struck an early blow by fighting to 172-8 and confidently defending the total.<\/p>\n They removed Sune Luus, Annerie Dercksen and Nadine de Klerk in the first seven overs and applied the squeeze as Laura Wolvaardt attempted a rebuild with Marizanne Kapp.<\/p>\n Australia had dropped De Klerk in the powerplay but two interventions in the field from Georgia Wareham, who also took 3-13 and contributed an important 32, proved decisive.<\/p>\n She ran out the dangerous all-rounder Kapp for 12 with an accurate throw from the deep and then took a smart low catch at cover to see off Wolvaardt for 44.<\/p>\n Afterwards, Australia clinically knocked over the lower order to dismiss the Proteas, who have reached the past three world finals across formats, for 107<\/p>\n Australia, in their first tournament under new captain Sophie Molineux, were below their best with the bat, losing regular wickets, but their impressive depth meant they still posted a testing score.<\/p>\n Wareham’s knock came after 50 from Phoebe Litchfield. Ellyse Perry also contributed 36.<\/p>\n South Africa may now have to beat India when the sides meet on Sunday, 21 June on the same ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T20 World Cup, Group 1, Edgbaston Australia 172-8 (20 overs): Litchfield 50 (24), Perry 36 (26); Mlaba 2-22…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-637772","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\/637772","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=637772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}