Top five performers in Women’s IPL 2019

Taking a cue from the Women’s Big Bash League and the Women’s Cricket Super League, the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) came up with the idea of Women’s T20 Challenge (Also known as Women’s IPL) in 2018. It was indeed a wonderful initiative by the board to nurture the talent in the country and provide an excellent platform for women cricketers to showcase their skills.

The three-team tournament was played in Mumbai in 2018 followed by the 2019 edition in Jaipur. Harmanpreet Kaur’s Supernovas won both the editions of the tournament played so far. With the 2020 edition of the tournament on the card soon, here is a look at some of the best performers from 2019.

5. Jemimah Rodrigues

Here’s wishing @JemiRodrigues a very happy birthday. ??

As she brings in her birthday, let’s relive her brisk 4⃣8⃣-ball 7⃣7⃣*-run knock from the 2019 Women’s T20 Challenge. ??#Dream11IPL

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) September 5, 2020

Jemimah Rodrigues was the leading run-scorer in the last edition of the tournament. She finished with 123 runs from three games at an average of nearly 62. Her strike rate of 134 was also the highest in the tournament.

Jemimah smashed 17 fours and a six in the competition. She is one of the eight cricketers to smash at least one six. Also, she hit more fours than anyone else.

4. Smriti Mandhana

Smriti Mandhana’s Trail Blazers played in the opening game of the 2019 season against the Supernovas. She started off with a fabulous knock of 90 off 67 balls in that game. Her team eventually won that match by 2 wickets.

In two games, Mandhana scored 100 runs at an average of 50 and a strike rate of nearly 130. She hit three sixes in the tournament, which is the joint second-highest along with Harmanpreet Kaur. She was the only batswoman to get into the nineties in the tournament and even smashed 12 fours which again is the joint second-highest with Kaur.

3. Amelia Kerr

New Zealand’s teen sensation Amelia Kerr was the best bowler in the Women’s T20 Challenge 2019. The 19-year-old leg-spinner picked up more wickets than anyone else in the tournament but her efforts couldn’t get her team over the line in the final where she scored 36 runs and picked up two wickets.

Overall, in three games, Kerr finished with 6 wickets with a brilliant average of 11.83 and an economy rate of 6.45. In two innings with the bat, she mustered 36 runs at an average of 18 and a strike rate of 90 which is great for a bowler.

2. Harmanpreet Kaur

The Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur led her team from the front with her performances with the bat in the tournament. Kaur scored 98 runs in three matches at an average of 98 – which is the highest average for any batswoman. Her strike rate is right up there with the best at 129.

She is one of the three batters to have scored a fifty in the tournament. Harmanpreet hit 12 fours and three sixes overall and is only behind Danielle Wyatt is ahead of her in the list with 4 sixes in the tournament.

1. Deepti Sharma

Deepti Sharma was one of the better bowlers in the tournament last year. She played two games for the Trailblazers and returned with excellent figures in one of the games. In the first match, Deepti went wicketless.

However, she bounced back in the second game with figures of 4/14 – the best bowling figures in the tournament and thus also finished second on the bowling charts. But in that game, Deepti could not help her team win the match. Her economy rate in the tournament was 5.12, which was the fourth-best in the overall list.