Indian superstars deliver pressure knocks at the perfect time
India’s quality rose to the top on Wednesday, as the team’s star players announced themselves at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in a huge win over Sri Lanka.
Only one player in the history of the women’s game has scored more runs in T20 Internationals than the Indian pair of Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur.
The two top-order stars have lit up the format for well over a decade, scoring more than 7000 runs between them and trailing only the veteran Suzie Bates in the all-time run-scoring stakes.
And when India needed their two stars to stand up, that is exactly what they did.
India secures record win to boost semi-final chances | Match Highlights | WT20WC 2024
Victory over Sri Lanka was imperative for India to keep their hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals of this tournament alive, and ideally that win needed to come by a huge margin to improve a troubling net run rate scenario.
But few could have predicted the sort of explosive display that India put on, with Mandhana setting things up with her outstanding 50 (38), before Kaur took the hitting to another level, hammering 52* from just 27 balls as India racked up 172/3 – the biggest total of the tournament.
“It was one of the days when I was in my zone, whenever the ball was in my zone I went hard,” India’s captain said.
“I was only thinking about positives. This wicket was not true to batting, you had to keep rotating the strike. But once ball was in your zone you could go for it.
“When you play good cricket, you always feel well,” Kaur added. “All boxes were ticked today.
“We did discuss before the game if we are batting first what's the target we want to set and if we are fielding what should be the score, but these wickets are tricky.
“Today a lot of things went according to plan, we were thinking of 160 and we posted 170. You have to think about NRR also when you are in this position.”
The attacking intent from India also came from two of their younger stars. Jemimah Rodrigues struck at a decent rate in her 16 (10), after Shafali Verma had got the ball rolling in the powerplay, hitting 43 from 40 deliveries.
In the course of that innings, Verma became the youngest woman to reach 2000 career runs in T20Is, doing so before even turning 21, beating the record recently set by Gaby Lewis of Ireland.
And Kaur was keen to credit the impact of Verma and her opening partner Mandhana for putting together a calculated stand that allowed India to accelerate as the innings went on.
"We just wanted to go with the momentum, Shafali and Smriti gave us a good start. Credit goes to them.
“They were there on the pitch, calculative, didn't throw the wicket away. Jemi and I, we just wanted to score seven-eight runs an over.”
India’s 82-run win gives them four points from three matches in Group A, with a meeting against defending champions Australia still to come.
Remaining fixtures in Group A
Australia v Pakistan – Friday 11 October (18:00 local time), Dubai International Cricket Stadium
New Zealand v Sri Lanka – Saturday 12 October (14:00 local time), Sharjah Cricket Stadium
India v Australia – Sunday 13 October (18:00 local time), Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Pakistan v New Zealand – Monday 14 October (18:00 local time), Dubai International Cricket Stadium
The T20 World Cup will see 23 matches held in total over 18 days, with all matches in the two host cities of Dubai and Sharjah.
Fans can purchase tickets online or directly at the stadiums, for more information on where to buy click here.