Austria level the series with a seven-wicket win over Italy

five-match series against Italy as they beat the hosts by seven wickets at the Roma Cricket Club in Spinaceto on Tuesday (August 10).

Opting to bat, Italy got off to terrible start losing three early wickets with three batters getting out without scoring inside the power play. They lost skipper Kumudu Peddrick – top-scorer in their historic win in the first match – in the third ball of the first over when Valentina Avdylaj trapped her in front of the wicket. Soon they lost Dilaisha Fernando in the fourth over and things went from bad to worse with Teshani Kankanamage getting run out to reduce Italy to 13 for three in the sixth over.

However, wicket-keeper Sharon Withanage and Dishani Samarawickrama added 39 runs for the fourth wicket to take the score past 50 in the 11^th over. Despite losing Withanage to another run out for 19, Samarawickrama continued in her ways and put on another 30 runs with Gayathri Batagoda.

Just when it looked like they could go for the final push in the last few overs, Italy lost Samarawickrama to the third run out of the innings for 33 and they eventually finished on 98 for six from the stipulated 20 overs.

For Austria, Sylvia Kailath was the most effective bowler with figures of one for 11 while two other bowlers also took one wicket each.

ALSO READ: Historic start for Italy as they win their first-ever T20I by eight wickets

In reply, Austria started slowly with Bushra UCA and Andrea-Mae Zepeda started slowly and soon they lost UCA for just five. Zepeda and skipper Gandhali Tushar added 52 runs for the second wicket with Italy providing the visitors with lot of extras with their wayward bowling.

Zepeda and Tushar made 16 and 19 respectively and when Austria lost Zepeda in the 15^th over, they needed 30 runs from 31 balls. Harjivan Bhullar and Mallika Pushpangani kept their calm in the final overs and Italy helped them with more extras – a whopping 39 runs came from them – as they chased down the target with five balls to spare.

Brief Scores: Italy 98/6 in 20 overs (Dishani Samarawickrama 33; Sylvia Kailath 1/11) lost to Austria 99/3 in 19.1 overs (Gandhali Tushar 19; Dishani Samarawickrama 1/12)