ICC Americas Women’s Div. 1 Championship
By Orville Hall
The USA completed a third consecutive victory by defeating Argentina by 10 runs at the Jimmy Powell Oval in the Cayman Islands earlier today. The USA sent Triholder Marshall to open the innings with Nadia Gruny, and the combination yielded only 7 runs before Marshall was bowled without scoring.
Samantha Ramautar bagged 3 wickets for 8 runs to help USA beat Argentina. Photo by Shiek Mohamed
Melissa Sandy, batting at number three, didn’t fare much better, as she too fell for a duck. With the USA reeling on 9 runs for 2 wickets, it would be up to Candacy Atkins and Gruny to put on 29 runs for the third wicket, before Atkins loss her wicket to Catalina Greloni for 6.
It was then up to Player-of-the-match Gruny, 27, Karen Bayles, 20 and Anahita Arora, 13 to get the USA to 92 for 7 off the allotted 20 overs. Set a target of 93 runs for victory, and with an asking rate of a mere 4.65 runs per over, Argentina must have been fancying its chances, but Team USA had other ideas, as Samantha Ramautar bowled steadily to pick up 3 wickets for 8 runs, while Sandy chipped in with 2 for 10, and the USA restricted Argentina to 82 for 7, to sneak home by a mere 10 runs.
Tomorrow is a rest day, and the USA will try to continue their winning ways as they tackle Bermuda on Friday, and take on Canada in the final game on Saturday.
If the USA can win the final two games, it would be on to the Women World Cup Qualifiers next year.