Indian team celebrating wicket against Pakistan in Women’s Asia Cup T20 World Cup 2024. (BCCI/Twitter)
The ‘Greatest Rivalry’ is now a familiar refrain from Indian cricket broadcasters when it comes to building up a match against Pakistan. Often though, the action on the field doesn’t live up to the hype. It was one of those occasions on Friday in Dambulla, as Harmanpreet Kaur’s India breezed to a comfortable 7-wicket win against their neighbours to kick off their Women’s Asia Cup title defence.
Coming into the match, Pakistan were right to be hopeful of a closer contest and it must have only improved as Nida Dar won the toss and opted to bat first. The last time the teams met at the T20 World Cup last year, they had India under pressure in a run-chase. In their last meeting at the Asia Cup too, batting first helped Pakistan close out an impressive group-stage win against the eventual champions. But winning the toss was pretty much all the joy they would have until India lost a few cheap wickets towards the back-end of the chase.
A total of 108 on a pitch that seemed pretty good to bat on was never going to be enough for Dar’s side, though. Deepti Sharma was the pick of the bowlers with three wickets and walked off with the player of the match honours. But the match was decided in the two powerplays.
Pooja Vastrakar picked up from where she left off against South Africa in Chennai in the last match India played, packing off both the openers with her hard-length bowling, something she’s become adept at. Pakistan’s innings never really got going from there. And then in the run-chase Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma broke the Pakistan resolve nice and early, racing to 57/0 at the end of the powerplay.
Player Of The Match Deepthi Sharma. (BCCI)
One of the many positives for India on the night was seeing Renuka Singh Thakur back among the wickets. Even though she went wicketless in the powerplay (an aspect that must still make the management ponder her inclusion in the XI) the pacer bounced back well in the 13th over to finish with two wickets off her last two deliveries. Renuka admitted in the mid-innings interview that she had to work hard with Troy Cooley at the NCA to figure out how to bounce back from dull returns during the home season against South Africa. Perhaps now she’d be able to carry this momentum forward into the tournament.
India’s ground-fielding was sloppy at times once again, but their catching was mostly solid as they strive to add consistency in that department. Radha Yadav personified that in the 18th over. First she attempted a dive for a catch at backward point but as the ball was falling short of her, she would turn her palms upside down to stop it from going past her. Then, she quickly got back up to complete a direct hit to end Syeda Aroob Shah’s innings. It is the sort of effort Harmanpreet would want to see more often and from more of her fielders.
The run-chase seemed like a formality once Shafali and Mandhana started off with good intent. After a blistering 85-run opening stand, India ended up losing three wickets to give Pakistan some solace. It wasn’t to be back-to-back 10-wicket wins for India, and it wasn’t to be back-to-back half-centuries for Mandhana. The elegant left-hander, however, did cross a significant milestone. She went past Harmanpreet to be the leading run-scorer for India in women’s T20Is with 3365 runs to her name. And in the end, India reiterated the favourites tag to win their 8th Women’s Asia Cup title.
Brief scores:
Pakistan 108 in 19.2 overs (Sidra 25, Deepti 3/20, Renuka 2-14, Shreyanka 2/14, Vastrakar 2/31) lost to India 109/3 (Mandhana 45, Shafali, Syeda 2/9) beat by seven wickets.
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