Women's T20 Challenge 2022 | In my mind I was prepared for a thriller: Harmanrpeet Kaur

The Women's T20 Challenge 2022 ended with a nail-biting match. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led Supernovas team won it on Saturday, 28 May, after beating the previous runner-up Velocity by a margin of just four runs in a nerve-wracking final at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune as well.

While the crowd couldn't keep calm in the final two overs in the contest where Laura Wolvaardt and Simran Dil Bahadur were smashing it all across the park, Supernovas' captain Harmanpreet Kaur kept her calm and led her side to their third title in four editions of the tournament as well.

While speaking after the game, Harmanpreet Kaur said that she was pretty calm during the final overs of the game.

"My heartbeat was normal," she said when asked about the tense last minutes. However, English left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone gave away 12 runs in the final over, from which Velocity needed 17 to pull off a win as well.

She continued, "I knew this game was going to be like that only, and I was prepared for the game to go down to the wire. Great effort by the girls. We never felt we won the game, and we knew anything could happen."

However, Velocity's openers - Shafali Verma and Yastika Bhatia, got off to a flying start to their run chase of 166 by scoring 28 off the first two overs, but soon they suffered a batting collapse in the middle before Laura Wolvaardt stepped up and raised their hopes of a maiden title win as well.

"First over was not in our favour, but I knew if we get two early wickets, the match can turn for us. At the right moment, we were getting the wickets. When Pooja started, we planned something else, but she wasn't able to bowl what we were thinking. It happens," said Harmanpreet Kaur.

"The way Sophie bowled it was outstanding. She was quite confident. If you have a bowler who is so confident, half the job is done. I was just giving her placement, and she was bowling the way she wanted to bowl. When you have teammates who always want to play each and every moment, you do that whether it's in your favour or not," she further added.

On the other hand, after the defeat, Deepti Sharma admitted that they needed to build partnerships in the middle where they lacked.

"I think had we built partnerships in the middle overs, it wouldn't have come down to this. Batters didn't take the responsibility, but Laura and Simran played really well. Given our batting lineup, it looked like a chasable target. Those two (Laura and Simran) had to swing the bat at everything. That was the only option they had. The way the team has performed, we did decently," the player concluded.