England thrash South Africa by 121 runs - a record margin in Women's T20Is
Thursday 21 June 2018 11:37, UK
England shattered the Women's T20I record score by blasting 250-3 against South Africa at Taunton in a crushing 121-run win - just hours after New Zealand had thrashed the same opposition for a then-highest 216.
Tammy Beaumont (116 off 52) and Danni Wyatt (56 off 36) laid the foundations with a first-wicket stand of 147, before Katherine Brunt (42no off 16) and Nat Sciver (33 off 15) took England past the White Ferns' total as a beleaguered Proteas attack conceded 466 runs from 40 overs in the day.
Beaumont smashed 18 fours and four sixes during her maiden T20I hundred, with her 47-ball ton the second quickest in the women's game, only beaten by Deandra Dottin's 38-ball effort for Windies against South Africa in St Kitts in 2010.
England seamer Anya Shrubsole, winning her 50th T20I cap, then bowled 17 dot balls and went for just eight from her four overs on a day on which 745 runs were scored as South Africa reached 129-6 in reply, thanks chiefly to skipper Dane van Niekerk's 72 off 51 balls, which followed a score of 58 against New Zealand.
Van Niekerk's half-century could not prevent her side from suffering the heaviest defeat in Women's Twenty20 internationals - topping the 115-run loss South Africa had inflicted on Netherlands in Potchefstroom in 2010 - on a day the Proteas will want to forget.
New Zealand had topped Australia's 209-4 - which had been set against England in Mumbai in March - in the tri-series opener on Wednesday, with Suzie Bates (124no off 66) slamming her nation's maiden T20I century and sharing a record 182-run stand with Sophie Devine (73 off 48) during a total of 216-1.
However, Beaumont, Wyatt, Brunt and Sciver ensured England soared past that, with Brunt taking the home side to the record by cracking Stacey Lackay for six in the 18th over, one of 42 boundaries Heather Knight's side hit (nine sixes, 33 fours).
Beaumont is the seventh woman to reach three figures in Twenty20 internationals after Bates, Wyatt, Dottin, Australian pair Lanning and Beth Mooney and South Africa's Shandre Fritz.
The opener's hundred was her third in a row across the formats, having slammed 101 and 105 at Hove and Canterbury respectively as England came from behind to beat South Africa 2-1 in the one-day international series.
England will face both South Africa and New Zealand at Taunton on Saturday, live on Sky Sports Cricket.
