NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Giving an all-round display, India’s women cricket team on Saturday crushed Sri Lanka by eight wickets in a one-sided final match to lift the Asia Cup at Sylhet in Bangladesh.
It was India women’s seventh Asia Cup title out of the eight times the tournament was held so far.
Right from the first over after Sri Lanka opted to bat after winning the toss, India dominated the field reducing the opponent to a dismal 16/5 at the end of the six overs of power play. Sri Lanka was never been able to recover from the bad start though was able to hang on for all the 20 overs but scoring only 65 runs losing nine wickets.
The target of 66 was chased down with very little inconvenience and it was Smriti Mandhana who top-scored with an unbeaten 51* off 25 balls. India was off to a solid start as they managed to score nearly half of their target before spinner Inoka Ranaweera dismissed Shafali Verma (5 off 7 balls) after the batter was stumped by wicketkeeper Anushka Sanjeewani.
India was at 32/1, with Mandhana having scored unbeaten 26 runs in just 14 balls when the first wicket fell. Jemimah Rodrigues too was bowled for two at the score of 37 but after that Mandhana with skipper Harmanpreet Kaur at the other end scored the requisite runs in just 8.3 overs to win the match by eight wickets. Kaur was unbeaten at 11.
Earlier, fiery power-play spell from pacer Renuka Singh (3/5), who was adjudged the player of the match, and top-notch performance by spinners Sneh Rana and Rajeshwari Gayakwad helped India restrict Sri Lanka to 65/9 in 20 overs.
Brief Scores:
Sri Lanka: 65/9 (Inoka Ranaweera 18*, Oshadi Ranasinghe 13, Renuka Singh 3/5) lost to India: 71/2 (Smriti Mandhana 51*, Harmanpreet Kaur 11*, Inoka Ranaweera 1/17).
(Manas Dasgupta)