Italy win with Southern European style alongside Southern Hemisphere steel

Italy (110/2 from 14 overs) beat Germany (108/4 from 20 overs) by 8 wickets with 36 balls to spare

In a battle of the underdogs in this very enjoyable European Division 1 qualifier series, it was Italy who eventually outsmarted Germany thanks to match winning knocks from their Italian-Australian duo of Chloe Piparo and Annie Wikman.

Italy won the toss and invited Germany to bat on a bright late August morning. Germany made a good start, with opening batters Wilhemena Garcia and Rameesha Shahid scoring early boundaries from the bowling of Nimesha Ekanayake. Despite losing Shahid to the consistent and accurate spin bowling of Thilini Fernando in the third over, the arrival of Shravya Kolcharam gave Germany extra momentum as she hit two boundaries, first from Wikman and then from Fernando to take Germany to an impressive 41/1 after seven overs. 

The fact that Germany did not convert this into a 120+ score is mainly down to the excellent bowling of Lenny Sims. The 23 year old Northants spinner, whose great-great uncle was England and Nottinghamshire legend Harold Larwood, dismissed first Garcia and then Nicole Kingsley in four miserly overs in which she conceded only 14 runs. 

It was left to Ameya Kanukuntla and Karthika Vijayaraghavan to navigate Germany though the final eight overs, putting together a decent partnership of 48, which only included two boundaries and was mainly made up of singles, taking them to a respectable total of 108/4, although it felt like they were 15-20 runs short of a competitive total.

Germany came out to bowl hunting early wickets and were duly rewarded when the impressive Ameya Kanukuntla, fresh from her unbeaten batting exploits, dismissed Alexia Kontopirakis in the second over, a wicket maiden, during which Italy were further weakened when Methnara Rathnayake was forced to retire hurt after turning her ankle.

This meant that two new batters were at the wicket: Chloe Piparo and Annie Wikman, both with a strong cricketing background in Australia and both doubtlessly capable of taking the game away from Germany. With the score at 21/1 in the fifth over, Piparo hit a lofted drive from Iris Edwards straight to extra cover. Somehow, the ball went through Wilhelmina Garcia’s hands and on to the boundary. At that moment, the game was changed. The Italian-Australian duo proceeded to accelerate, collecting 45 runs from the next 5 overs, so that by the drinks break at 10 overs, the game had disappeared from Germany’s grasp, with 39 runs required from the final 10 overs.

Immediately after the break, Rameesha Shahid had Chloe Piparo out caught, thin edging a ball down the leg side to the keeper. The celebrations that ensued were reminiscent of a side which had just won the World Cup, however, this brought Lenny Sims to the wicket, fresh from her excellent bowling exploits. Sims struck 22 from 15 balls over the next four overs to see Italy comfortably home alongside the excellent Annie Wickman, whose score of 38 from 31 is the highest score achieved by anyone representing these two teams during the tournament.

Player of the match award went to Lenny Sims for her all-round contribution. Italy will be pleased to have secured their second win of the tournament and maintain a theoretical chance of qualifying for the global finals in Nepal. For Germany, they can surely see that the gap between them and the rest is closing and the highly vocal and high energy style shown by both players and coaching staff has brought joy and vibrancy to the tournament.