Samoa's women cricket team will play Papua New Guinea (P.N.G.) for the gold medal after they defeated Vanuatu and Fiji.

The Nafanua beat Vanuatu 83 runs to 66 Friday morning and followed up on that performance with a close victory over Fiji, winning 127 runs to 126 to secure their place in the gold medal playoff, against the region's top seed P.N.G.

The men's cricket team lost against Vanuatu Friday morning, to only amass 148 out of 183 runs. Despite the loss the Samoa men's team are still in medal content.

Samoa women’s cricket coach, Garry Stephen Wood, said they are aiming to be the best in region, having come second twice in the East Asia-Pacific World Cup qualifiers. The first time was in Japan in 2017 and then again in Vanuatu earlier this year, placing them behind P.N.G.

“P.N.G. are full on cricketers and they’ll definitely be the team to beat, but Samoa has a lot of talent and we just need to harness that talent and win.”

Both the Samoa men and women's teams hope that the playing of cricket during this year's Pacific Games will give more exposure to the sport, especially women's cricket in Samoa. 

The Saturday morning matches will be used to determine the third and fourth placings of the Pacific Games with the Samoa men and women's teams playing at 1.30pm. The competition will end with the official medal ceremony at 5.00pm.