Mithali Raj heaped praise on Sushma Verma and Sune Luss as Velocity beat Supernovas by five wickets to progress ahead in the Women's T20 Challenge 2020 at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
Chasing a modest total of 127 runs to win, Velocity fell apart before Verma and Luss stitched a match-winning 51-run partnership to help Mithali's team reach home.
"It went very close. Definitely challenging. Most of the girls were part of the T20 World Cup but Jhulan and I are playing after the last edition. I was expecting 120-130, but you expect the openers to get you 30-40 runs. Losing Dani, our main player, there was some panic, but Veda and Luus have played really well and got us back on track," Mithali said.
"Such platforms help young players rub shoulders with seniors and their idols and that's excellent exposure for them. It's difficult to prepare for back-to-back games since it's a 2 PM game tomorrow, but that's how it is," she added.
Luus, who scored an unbeaten 37 off 21 ball said that staying till the end was important.
"It was a difficult task. The other team bowled very well, but Veda and Sushma batted really well, rotated the strike and hit boundaries too. Sushma told me every ball to stay here till the end. I didn't find the surface that difficult, and it was coming on quite nicely. You saw the sixes that we managed to hit," she said.
"I think it played nicely throughout the innings, so I think it depends on your style of batting whether the conditions suit you or not. We're very grateful to the BCCI and the ICC, for organizing a tournament like this, especially in these crazy times," she added.
Losing skipper Harmanpreet Kaur rued the fact that her side was 20 runs short and that her team lacked the execution in the bowling department.
"Yes, we were 20 runs short, but if you want to win the game, you have to keep bowling well. I think whatever we thought, we didn't bowl according to our plans in the last couple of overs. They batted really well. Last four overs, we didn't utilize it very well with the bat. We could've looked for the singles at least but we didn't get those runs. Playing after a long time, it's not easy for the players. If you keep winning then only you can survive in this tournament," Kaur said.
"We need to come up with a positive approach in the next game. There was dew in the last couple of overs, but I feel it's part of the game and we didn't win this because we didn't bowl well in the last couple of overs."
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