The Indian women’s cricket team made a perfect comeback against Bangladesh 24 hours after suffering a 13-run defeat against arch-rivals Pakistan in their previous Women’s Asia Cup 2022 match on Friday (October 7) at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.
After winning the toss, India Women decided to bat first and went on to post 159/5 on the board against Bangladesh Women, thanks to a 96-run first-wicket stand between Smriti Mandhana (47) and Shafali Verma (55) in the 15th match of the ongoing Women’s Asia Cup 2022.
Apart from the duo, Jemimah Rodrigues contributed an unbeaten 35 as well. Defending the total, Shafali yet again shined with the ball, taking 2 scalps, while Deepti Sharma also returned with 2/13 to help India restrict Bangladesh to 100/7 to win the match by 59 runs and make it to the semi-finals.
After the match, India's stand-in captain, Mandhana, lauded her team's efforts in making a good comeback within 24 hours of suffering a narrow defeat in their last Women’s Asia Cup 2022 match.
Smriti Mandhana said after the match: “It was disappointing in the last match (versus Pakistan). It's good to comeback after that loss, really proud of the girls. Today it was a total team performance.”
She continued, “Shafali batted well, and also Jemimah played well. We could have scored 10 runs more while batting. We had to keep bowling dot balls, and we had to wait for their batters to make mistakes, which they did. Our bowlers bowled really well.”
Meanwhile, Shafali, who was adjudged player of the match for her all-round efforts against Bangladesh, said that the pitch was tough to bat on. She also lauded the team’s bowling show.
Shafali said after the match, “I am always ready to give my best for the team (with the bat and ball). It was a bit difficult pitch for batting as the ball kept low. I have put in a lot of hardwork and want to thank my family and friends for their support. We are very happy with our performance, everyone played really well.”
She concluded, “We didn't bowl well in the powerplay. We bowled too many loose balls. We couldn't get many runs in our powerplay either. Our main bowlers couldn't execute their plans.”
(With PTI Inputs)
