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Inter Miami teenager Tyler Hall admits he was left feeling “like I was in a video game” after being joined in Florida by all-time great Lionel Messi.

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All-time great now in the United StatesImpressing all of those around himCatching the eye on and off the pitchWHAT HAPPENED?

The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner linked up with the MLS outfit over the summer, with a remarkable move to the United States being completed after reaching the end of his contract at Paris Saint-Germain. Messi made an immediate impact in Miami, as he helped to deliver a historic Leagues Cup triumph, and still has a number of team-mates pinching themselves.

AdvertisementGettyTHE BIGGER PICTURE

Hall falls into that category, with the highly-rated defender telling FIFA’s of what it is like to work with Messi on a daily basis: “The first day Messi came, it didn't feel real. It was like I was in a video game or something! It hits me once in a while that he's right next to me. He's a very approachable guy. He is always smiling and always comes over to shake my hand. He is a great guy and is so good with all the young players.”

WHAT THEY SAID

Facing Messi in training is helping Hall to improve his game, even if he admits that the Argentine icon can prove impossible to stop at times. The 17-year-old, who is yet to make his competitive debut for Inter Miami, added on lining up against Messi, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba: “I’ve played 11v11 against them. It’s crazy. They just think faster, they play faster. It's amazing to have them on the field next to you at this young age. Messi actually played on my side [of the pitch] and was up against me. If you watch Messi's games, you see him walking around, scanning the field, then all of a sudden he checks his shoulder and then he's just gone! He moves so quick and it was hard for me to keep up. I was frustrated, even knowing he's one of the best players in the world, because I want to be able to guard him. I want to better myself and be able to defend him really well in the future.”

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GettyWHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Few defenders have been able to contain the obvious threat that Messi poses down the years, with the 36-year-old superstar having reached 726 goals through 899 appearances at club level while also hitting the target on 106 occasions in 178 outings for his country.

The 19-year-old is one of the United States' most exciting young talents and is already on the radar of some top Women's Super League clubs

To go pro or to stay at college? That is the question so many top women’s soccer talents in the United States have pondered in the last few years.

It was back in 2012 that Lindsey Horan, now a world champion with the U.S. women's national team, became the first female soccer player to skip college and turn professional. In the years since, it has become a much more common theme.

After Mallory Pugh became the first player to skip college to sign in the NWSL, the country's top league, in 2017, every top pick in the last four editions of the NWSL Draft has left college early to go pro. Trinity Rodman, the second pick in 2021, never even played for a university.

Now, it’s the turn of Alexis Missimo to think about that conundrum.

Daughter of Derek, the all-time leading goalscorer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she’s already had an eye-catching college career herself, despite the second full year of it having not yet concluded.

Whether she decides to build on that in a professional sense in the coming months or she waits until she graduates college will eventually be trivial, as there are few doubts she has history to make when she gets there.

So, who is Missimo and what makes her so highly-rated? NXGN explains…

• Angela Kelly
  

  Where it began

  Missimo was only little when she was picking up her first trophies – but they weren’t for soccer.

  “My sister played and I was actually the mascot for that team,” she tells NXGN, with awards marked ‘mascot’ given her to when they won tournaments. “I would wear a cheerleader outfit and I'd go to every one of her games. I just saw how she was with her team-mates and I just fell in love with the sport.”

  Soon after, she would begin playing with Solar Soccer Club, one of the most successful soccer programmes in the States. There, she’d meet her best friend, Trinity Byars, another incredibly exciting American whose talent means she can certainly think about going pro, too. “She’s having a great season,” Missimo adds. “She'll probably be the Offensive Player of the Year.”

  A few years later, the pair would commit to the University of Texas when they were still in the eighth grade.

  “It would have been a guesstimated risk for more coaches because you're going on the assumption that they're going to continue to develop,” Angela Kelly, coach of the Texas Longhorns tells NXGN. “But with those two, it was like blue chippers. You knew that they were destined to do great things in the game.”

  “We're kind of just a package deal,” Missimo adds. “We went together and I just thought, 'If I have her, we'll be a solid team in general'.”

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• Getty
  

  The big break

  There hasn’t been an explosive moment that announced Missimo to the world, but rather a hype that has built steadily while she has posted insane numbers year after year.

  In 2019, she scored 62 goals and provided 49 assists in just 32 games for Solar in the U.S. Soccer Girls Development Academy. Those kind of stats make people take notice – with her ranking at No.4 in the NXGN lists of both 2021 and 2022.

  A regular in the youth national teams from the age of 13, Missimo was ranked as the No.1 recruit in the country upon graduating high school, with the curiosity around how she would do at the next level certainly piquing at that time.

• Texas Longhorns
  

  How it’s going

  Both Manchester City and Arsenal have told Missimo that they have opportunities for her should she decide to go pro. That’s a good indicator of how it is going for her.

  The teenager trained with City twice in 2019, experiences she says were “everything that I thought [they] were going to be”.

  “That was the best soccer I've ever played, personally. I was nervous because I wanted to perform, but also it was like playing with likewise players, and I really liked it.”

  Earlier this year, she won the CONCACAF Women’s Championship with the U.S. Under-20 national team, named in the tournament’s Best XI after scoring three goals.

  “She missed six games this season and she's leading the country in assists, still,” Kelly says, speaking to NXGN during an incredible 2022 season for Missimo.

  “She broke the record for assists in a season [at Texas] just in the last match… She's just dynamic. She changes the game whenever she's in it.”

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• Texas Longhorns
  

  Biggest strengths

  “She's got everything,” says Eddie Pope, a man who can be trusted to spot talent having represented the U.S. men's national team 82 times and played for his country at three World Cups.

  Pope is now an agent and has been advising the Missimo family in recent years, having gone to the same university as Derek and become friends with him through those connections.

  “You don't typically see someone that has that many different aspects to their game, at her age. She can shoot with both feet really well. She's got great size, great speed, great pace. She's physical and strong. She's good in the air.

  “She can play in the middle, but she can also play up top as a striker – a striker that might want to get in behind the defence, a striker that runs off the shoulders of the defenders because she has the pace to do it. But she can also play as a striker that holds the ball up in front of the defenders because she can pass so well.

  “Her soccer IQ is really, really high, so she can also play as a withdrawn striker that comes really deep into the midfield to kind of unbalance the defence. She can be in a bunch of different spots. She's good enough to play as a six or an eight.”

  “I think I can read the game better than I did before the [national team] camps and also that's just about learning how to grow up,” Missimo adds herself.

  “My dad was my coach, who has taught me a lot – he taught me everything I know about soccer – so him and the national team camps have taught me how to be more technical, how to be more aware of the game and how to be professional overall.”

Goal looks at the kits of the teams participating in Euro 2020 this summer, from Germany's classic, updated strip to Spain's unconventional home kit

Euro 2020  (now taking place in 2021) will feature the top international sides from across Europe and they will all be wearing unique attire at the tournament.

Football kits are generally updated every season and, when it comes to international football, almost inevitably before each major competition.

Goal takes a look at what the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin De Bruyne, Harry Kane and more will be wearing at this summer's European Championship.

GettyAustria – Home kit

Puma is the manufacturer of Austria's kit for Euro 2020 and it has received a number of outings already. Red on the torso with white sleeves and a round collar, the jersey is imbued with a classic Alpine design graphic, which is inspired by the Vienna Secession art nouveau style.

AdvertisementAustriaAustria – Away kit

The Austria away kit was unveiled by Puma in November 2019, featuring a sleek black and teal design with a feather pattern. The OFB crest appears on the left side, with the graphic and colours inspired, like the home kit, by Austria's art nouveau style from the 19th and 20th century.

Adidas/Goal compositeBelgium – Home kit

Belgium's home kit, made by Adidas, features a bold brushstroke graphic that forms the letter "B" on the front. The Belgian flag makes up the red, yellow and black colourway, with yellow hints also across the cuffs and collar.

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AdidasBelgium – Away kit

Belgium's away kit is a grey-white number but with red and black embellishments. Adidas' trademark three stripes (in red) adorn the shoulders.

A tetchy Darren Sammy said West Indies’ batsmen did not take the responsibility to chase down a rather small target – 124 – against Afghanistan

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Nagpur27-Mar-2016It was Afghanistan’s first win in the Super 10s, it was their first win in any format against a Full Member side other than Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and they had done rather well to beat West Indies, but the West Indies captain was in no mood to praise his opponents. An uncharacteristically tetchy Darren Sammy instead said his team should have had the match in the bag, that they should have easily chased 124, and failed to do so only because none of their batsmen took the responsibility of anchoring the chase.”[I] don’t think it was difficult,” he said, when asked about the challenge of batting against Afghanistan’s spinners on a slow, grippy pitch. “At the end of the day, we just didn’t play smart enough. We backed ourselves. The games we have won, every match somebody took responsibility to bat through. Chris [Gayle] did it in the first game, [Andre] Fletcher did it in the second game, Marlon [Samuels] did it in the third.”This time nobody did it. Nobody took responsibility, just left it for the next man to come. Like I said to the guys tonight, we just leave this game here in Nagpur. It’s a new focus now, which is the semi-final which is the first step and we just have to be ready to face whoever it is in Mumbai.”In a closely fought match decided by a six-run margin, Afghanistan ran 11 twos, while West Indies only managed five. Sammy didn’t think this had been a key difference between the two sides in the game, and repeated his belief that West Indies should have won the game comfortably.”This ground is probably one of the biggest grounds in India,” he said. “Plenty [of] twos were on display, especially when you are trying to save the boundary. Batsmen, depending on how quickly the ball is coming to you, always [have] two on offer particularly if you run the first one hard. Yeah, look, at the end of the day, we were really happy chasing 124. We should have gotten it. We lost the game, they didn’t win it.”While disappointed that West Indies had lost, Sammy was happy they had won their first three games and to be among the final four teams left standing in the World T20.”They [Afghanistan] are a side we were supposed to beat, and we just didn’t do that today. But the main objective of the Super 10 was to qualify for the semis and that we did.”Fletcher retired hurt after the sixth over of West Indies’ innings, while batting on 10. He returned to the crease in the final over, with West Indies needing 10 off the last three balls, but looked in clear discomfort, hobbling the last run of his innings. Philip Spooner, the West Indies media manager, said he had injured his right hamstring.”We will assess him tomorrow early and a decision would be made,” he said. “At this stage, as you could see, he is struggling, but a full assessment will be made tomorrow.”

Eighty-six runs short of the record for most runs by a West Indian, Shivnarine Chanderpaul has been left out of the first Test against Australia on June 3

ESPNcricinfo staff30-May-2015

Shivnarine Chanderpaul has been left out of West Indies’ 14-member squad to face Australia in the first of two Tests starting June 3. He is 87 runs short of breaking the record for most Test runs by a West Indian, but has hit a trough of poor form and both chairman of selectors Clive Lloyd and coach Phil Simmons had felt he did not have a place in their best XI.Chanderpaul made only 92 runs at an average of 15.33 in the three Tests against England in April and May. He has had six single-digit scores and only one fifty in his last 10 innings.Meanwhile, the uncapped duo of Shane Dowrich, who scored twin fifties against the touring Australians, and Rajindra Chandrika find a place in the team.Changes to WI squad from the England series

In: Shane Dowrich and Rajindra Chandrika
Out:Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Devon Smith and Carlos Brathwaite

Dowrich, the 23-year old wicketkeeper batsman, peaked over the last two years in first-class cricket, averaging 50.18 against his overall figure of 37.46. He struck three centuries and seven fifties in that period, including a career-best unbeaten 131. Chandrika, the 25-year old batsman, averages 25 as well in first-class cricket. But his selection into the national squad comes on the back of better recent form. Apart from the 74 he hit against the Australians, he’s struck four fifties this year in the Regional four-day tournament.Opening batsman Shai Hope, who made his debut against England, retains his spot. Spinners Devendra Bishoo and Veerasammy Permaul, who played only one of the three Tests of that series, have kept their places as well. The fast bowling will be headed by Jerome Taylor, Kemar Roach, Jason Holder and Shannon Gabriel.West Indies squad for the first Test Denesh Ramdin (capt), Devendra Bishoo, Jermaine Blackwood, Kraigg Brathwaite, Darren Bravo, Rajindra Chandrika, Shane Dowrich, Shannon Gabriel, Jason Holder, Shai Hope, Veerasammy Permaul, Kemar Roach, Marlon Samuels, Jerome Taylor

South Africa’s Test captain, Hashim Amla, has signed a short-term contract to join Derbyshire as a replacement for Martin Guptill

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Apr-2015

South Africa’s Test captain, Hashim Amla, has signed a short-term contract to join Derbyshire as a replacement for Martin Guptill. Derbyshire will become Amla’s fourth county, after spells with Surrey, Nottinghamshire and Essex.Guptill had signed for the first two months of the season but his recall to New Zealand’s Test team reduced his availability. Amla will now slot in for two Championship matches and three fixtures in the NatWest T20 Blast from the start of May. Tillakaratne Dilshan has also signed for two spells, either side of the Caribbean Premier League.”Hashim is a world-class batsman and a proven match-winner on both the Test and limited-overs stage,” Graeme Welch, Derbyshire’s performance director, said. “He’s a player I have worked with before and I know he will be a great influence on the younger lads. He will also bring a wealth of experience to the side as we look to compete at the highest level in both red-ball and white-ball cricket.”Amla has scored almost 13,000 runs in international cricket and is currently No. 3 in the Test and ODI batting rankings. He has averaged 63.04 in Championship cricket, as well as 54.66 in four T20 innings for Surrey. Wayne Madsen, Derbyshire’s captain, also has experience of playing under Amla for South Africa U-19s.Amla said: “I’m delighted to have the opportunity to play in England this summer. Derbyshire are an ambitious club with an exciting young team and I’ve enjoyed working with Graeme before. I’m looking forward to making a strong contribution in both four-day and Twenty20 cricket for Derbyshire next month.”

A round-up of the Ranji Trophy Group A matches played on December 21, 2014

ESPNcricinfo staff21-Dec-2014
ScorecardJalaj Saxena struck eight fours and a six during his 120 not out•Sivaraman Kitta

An unbeaten half-century from Parvez Rasool led a strong batting effort from Jammu & Kashmir on day one in Vadodara, but a couple of late strikes from left-arm spinner Swapnil Singh (4 for 92) helped Baroda claw their way back into the game.J&K, having been inserted, began brightly as the openers Shubham Khajuria (41) and Adil Reshi (46) put up a 93-run stand. Swapnil dismissed both batsmen in the space of four overs, but Bandeep Singh and Ian Dev Singh kept the score ticking by adding 66 for the third wicket. Baroda fought back with two more quick wickets, this time from pace bowler Sagar Mangalorkar, but once again, J&K counterattacked as Rasool and Hardeep Singh joined hands for a fifth-wicket stand which yielded 64 runs. Rasool remained 65 not out, with 10 fours, but Swapnil removed Hardeep and Obaid Haroon towards the end of the day. J&K were 266 for 6 when stumps were called.
ScorecardA four-for from the Railways medium-pacer Krishnakant Upadhyay left Karnataka rattling at 207 for 7 at stumps in Delhi. Upadhyay first removed Karnataka’s top three batsmen, before striking again towards the end of the day to dismiss their captain Vinay Kumar, as he collected 4 for 75.Most of Karnataka’s top and middle-order batsmen made starts, but nobody apart from Robin Uthappa (40) and Kunal Kapoor (53) chipped in with a useful score. Karnataka will now be hoping that the in-form CM Gautam builds on his overnight score of 31 not out if the team are to compile a competitive total.
ScorecardJalaj Saxena’s ninth first-class hundred guided Madhya Pradesh to a promising position against Tamil Nadu in Chennai. MP, opting to bat, were 250 for 4 at stumps with Saxena still unbeaten on 120. The visitors’ innings was built around a 130-run partnership for the second wicket between Saxena and Harpreet Singh. Harpreet eventually fell for 65, having struck three fours and four sixes, but Saxena carried on, helping the team past 200. He stroked eight fours and a six during his 251-ball knock. Allrounder M Rangarajan picked up two wickets for Tamil Nadu, while Rahil Shah and Aushik Srinivas claimed a scalp each.
ScorecardOnly 50 overs were possible in the clash between Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai in Kanpur, with UP scoring 115 for 1 before stumps were called. UP, having been inserted, lost their opener Mukul Dagar early – bowled by Shardul Thakur – but Tanmay Srivastava and Prashant Gupta engineered a recovery with an unbroken 87-run partnership. Srivastava muscled eight fours during his 49 not out, while Prashant’s unbeaten 41 included six fours.

A round-up of Momentum One Day Cup matches played on October 26, 2014

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Oct-2014Theunis de Bruyn struck an unbeaten 152 to lead Titans to victory over Warriors in Port Elizabeth. Titans reached the target of 279 with seven wickets and 15 deliveries to spare.Titans lost their openers with the score on 44 but de Bruyn and Graeme van Buuren guided them past 100. Farhaan Behardien then joined de Bruyn and the duo put on an unbeaten 175-run partnership to see their side home. Behardien made 62 off 60 with seven fours while de Bruyn hit 16 fours and three sixes in his 152 off 144, his second hundred in five List A matches.Warriors’ 278 for 6 had been built on seventies from Michael Price and Colin Ingram. JJ Smuts made 44 at the top of the order, while Christiaan Jonker clubbed an unbeaten 41 off 19 at the death. Marchant de Lange was the most successful bowler for Titans with 4 for 54.Stephen Cook’s unbeaten 102 guided Lions to an eight-wicket win in Bloemfontein after their bowlers had dismissed Knights for 205. Cook and Alviro Petersen had an opening partnership of 137 in just over 25 overs, and the former carried on till the target was within sight.Petersen scored 52 off 73 while Cook made 102 from 108 with ten fours and a six. Temba Bavuma stayed till the end with an unbeaten 38 at No. 3.Lions’ decision to bowl paid off as Dwaine Pretorius ripped through the Knights’ middle order with a haul of 4 for 35. Lonwabo Tsotsobe took care of the openers while Chris Morris polished off the lower order. Rudi Second steadied the innings with 74 after Knights had slipped to 43 for 3. Second put on 79 with Pite van Biljon but wickets started tumbling again after that, and despite Obus Pienaar’s unbeaten 47, Knights folded for 205.Dolphins and Cape Cobras shared points as their match was washed out in Durban.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
The St Lucia Zouks outlasted the Antigua Hawksbills, and plenty of island rain, to bring their home fans a long awaited first win of the season in a five-wicket victory at Beausejour Stadium in Gros Islet on Sunday. The Zouks chased down a Duckworth-Lewis target of 106 with 15 balls to spare after the Hawksbills made 103 for 6 in a match reduced to 16 overs following a series of rain delays. The Hawksbills are now the only winless team remaining in the CPL.Darren Sammy won the toss and elected to field first as the Zouks struck a pair of early blows following an 18-minute delayed start due to afternoon showers in St. Lucia. Sohail Tanvir struck Ben Dunk on the pads with a sharp inswinger to win an lbw appeal three balls into the match before Mervin Mathew dismissed Devon Thomas with a lofted drive that failed to clear Shane Shillingford at mid-off to leave the score 6 for 2 at the end of the second over.Shacaya Thomas tried to slog Shillingford over the midwicket boundary two balls into the ninth over but going against the wind resulted in a simple catch inside the rope for Johnson Charles to make it 30 for 3. One more delivery was played before dark clouds brought a brief but heavy shower to delay play for 50 minutes. No overs were deducted by the time play resumed but only one more ball was able to be bowled before the skies opened up yet again for a third delay. A further 40-minute interruption resulted in four overs being deducted per side.Danza Hyatt wound up top-scoring for the Hawksbills with 26 off 36 before a terrible mixup with Marlon Samuels resulted in Hyatt sacrificing his wicket making the score 47 for 4 in the 11th over. Samuels, David Hussey and Carlos Brathwaite combined for five sixes down the stretch of the innings, but they were bracketed by too many dot balls as the Hawksbills failed to post a competitive target. Tanvir in particular did an excellent job restricting the scoring. Just two runs were conceded off his last over in the 15th and he finished with figures of 3 for 15 in four overs.The Zouks also struggled early in their innings as Gavin Tonge made his presence felt for the Hawksbills in his first CPL game of the year. Tonge took the wickets of Andre Fletcher, caught at mid-off for 2, and Keddy Lesporis, slashing to third man for 1, to end up with figures of 2 for 12. Combined with Carlos Brathwaite’s successful lbw appeal on Charles for 11, it left the Zouks 21 for 3 inside of four overs.Overseas player Henry Davids arrived at number five and provided some much needed stability, shepherding Sunil Ambris through a 46-run partnership. The stand ended when Ambris attempted to complete a tight second run for Davids and was well short from the throw by sub fielder Justin Athanaze from long-on to Brathwaite over the bowler’s end stumps for 17.Davids added another 26 with Tanvir for the fifth wicket and fell for a game-high 43 in the 13th over with 13 needed to win and victory in sight. After his earlier success with the ball, Tanvir put his final stamp on the game with the bat by crushing consecutive sixes over midwicket in the 14th to clinch the match.

Australia Women survived a Deandra Dottin-led late charge from West Indies Women to keep their chances of completing a hat-trick of World T20 titles with a tight win in the first semi-final in Mirpur

The Report by Devashish Fuloria03-Apr-2014
Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsAlyssa Healy’s counter lifted Australia in the their last five overs•ICC

Australia Women survived a Deandra Dottin-led late charge to remain in contention for a hat-trick of World T20 titles with a tight win over West Indies Women in the first semi-final in Mirpur. Dottin, in the company of Stacy-Ann King, kept West Indies interested in the chase of 141 with a 78-run stand that came in 8.4 overs, but her dismissal in the penultimate over continued her team’s trend of sliding against Australia in a World Cup knockout match. West Indies had been stung by Australia in the final of the ODI World Cup last year and in the semi-final of the World T20 in Sri Lanka before that.After the openers had provided West Indies with a solid platform, much depended on how Dottin, West Indies’ second-best batsman in the tournament behind Stafanie Taylor, would respond to an increasing required rate that had climbed to 9.3 at the end of 10 overs. Dottin opted for a relatively watchful approach rather than an all-out attack as her run-scoring load for lessened by an aggressive King at the other end. However, she didn’t let any loose delivery go unpunished – full-tosses were swatted away and shorter ones were pulled hard. She brought up the half-century of the partnership with a muscular hoick over long-on for six that also brought the equation down to 43 off 28 balls. But with 20 needed off 11, she smashed a low full-toss from Sarah Coyte straight into the hands of deep midwicket, effectively ending West Indies’ chances.West Indies’ highest total to win a T20I was 140 and Australia had much to thank Alyssa Healy – who normally opens the innings but batted at No. 7 – for pushing the target beyond that number. Australia experimented with Jess Jonassen as opener for the first time in her 22-match career but her surprise promotion brought some glaring communication errors between the openers to fore. Jonassen was lucky to not be run-out on the first ball she faced, and then survived another couple of poor calls and a dropped chance at mid-off, before being finally run-out for 5, in a partnership of 32.The side-effect of that faulty experiment however worked in Australia’s favour. Healy, pushed down the order, brought the energy back after West Indies had struck to remove three middle-order wickets within the space of 14 runs. Her first stroke, a late cut to the third-man boundary off Anisa Mohammed, was polar opposite of a switch-hit she attempted twice: the first time, she failed to make a contact but the ball ran away for four byes while the second time, Taylor, spotting the intentions early, didn’t release the ball at all. Misfiring switch-hits aside, Healy managed to ping the boundary four times in an unbeaten 21-ball 30 to lift Australia to 140, Australia’s lowest total batting first in this tournament.The foundation of the total was laid at the top end by opener Elyse Villani’s 35 and Meg Lanning, who continued her good form in the tournament. Villani opened her account with an emphatic front-foot pull in the first over bowled by Tremaine Smartt and was comfortable using either the sweep-shot or the lofted drive over mid-off once West Indies switched to spin from the second over onwards. One of those aerial drives also brought her innings to an end as it landed in the lap of long-off in Anisa’s second over.Lanning too was happy to use her feet to the spinners – an extra cover drive that landed just short of the boundary being her best shot – while her cuts and pulls brought her boundaries off seamer Shakera Selman. But her effortless innings was cut short when she chopped on a length delivery from Smartt. Australia’s mini-crisis at the fall of Jess Cameron to Anisa soon after was averted though as Healy put up 48 in 28 balls with Alex Blackwell.The West Indies openers couldn’t have asked for anything better than pace on a slow wicket. Unlike West Indies, Australia’s attack was replete with seamers and they provided the necessary fuel for the deflections to run to the boundary easily – the first three boundaries from Taylor and Kycia Knight came in the third-man region. The next two boundaries – flicks through square leg – ensured the scoreboard kept ticking despite the openers having to take any undue risks.Australia’s lucky break came in the eighth over when Taylor, trying to sneak an extra run off a misfield at cover, was found short by a flat throw from Sarah Coyte. The sudden dip in scoring brought the second wicket soon as Knight skipped out of the crease to a flighted delivery from Erin Osborne only to miss it and lose her middle stump. The bowlers ran out of ideas during the third-wicket stand between Dottin and King, but once the partnership was broken, they quickly closed all escape routes.