U-19 T20: India beat South Africa by 54 runs

Pretoria: The Indian U-19 women's cricket team produced an all-round effort to beat South Africa by 54 runs in the first T20I of the five-match series here on Tuesday.

The series serves as preparation for both teams ahead of the ICC U-19 Women's T20 World Cup to be held in South Africa from January 14 to 29.

Opener Shewata Sehrawat and Soumya Tiwari scored 40 each off 39 and 46 balls respectively to guide India to 137 for five after being asked to bat.

But the start was far from rosy for the Indians as they lost skipper Shafali Verma in the first delivery of the match.

But Sehrawat and Tiwari then joined hands and stitched 70 runs off 74 balls for the second wicket to set the platform for India's total. While Sherawat decorated her innings with five boundaries, Tiwari hit three fours and six.

Besides the duo, wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh made 15.