Ireland completes clean sweep after brilliant bowling
IRELAND has clean swept its T20 series with Zimbabwe after an impressive 14-run win over the hosts in the final match of the series. Ireland made 7/138 in its innings, before a late bowling strangulation saw them restrict Zimbabwe to 8/124 after the hosts got off to an impressive start.
The day did not start off strongly for Ireland as it lost its first wicket halfway through the third over with only four runs on the board, but then recovered to post a 64-run second wicket partnership.
Partnership three ended at the 37-run mark before the wheels started to fall off for the Irish. They lost 3/13 before steadying the ship again towards the back end of the innings.
Gaby Lewis and Orla Prendergast were the ones to put together that 64-run second wicket partnership, and as such were unsurprisingly the top scorers for the Irish with 42 runs each.
Meanwhile for the hosts, Kelis Ndhlovu topped the wicket tally with three wickets to her name, while Nomvelo Sibanda and Precious Marange picked up two each.
Zimbabwe made a really strong start to their innings, sitting at 0/42 after its powerplay and looking in a strong position. The hosts eventually made it to 77 before losing their first wicket, but then once they did, wickets fell in an avalanche-like style.
The Irish bowlers really got to work and started to tighten on the Zimbabwean batters, and as a result made their hosts lose 6/7 in the space of 17 balls to flip the match in their favour.
Although they steadied the ship a bit in the back end of that innings, that middle order collapse proved too much for the Zimbabweans to recover from and they ultimately ran out of time to reach the target.
Their openers were the pick of the batters, with captain Mary-Anne Musonda making 52 and Ndhlovu making 32.
Meanwhile for the Irish it was Prendergast and skipper Laura Delany who were the linchpins of the middle order carnage, picking up three of the wickets each, while Leah Paul chipped in with one wicket of her own.
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