Venue : Junction Oval, Melbourne
Toss : Sri Lanka Women won the toss and opt to bat
Captain’s view
Harmanpreet Kaur: It’s a good opportunity to chase. It’s good for us. We are sticking with the same players that played in the last match. We are doing quite well, we don’t want to try anything else. We are winning, we need to keep doing the right things.
Chamari Athapaththu: We are going to bat first. I’m pretty confident about my batting group. Our main focus to play positive cricket. 120 is a good score on this wicket. We’ll try to score that. We have one change. Sandeepani comes in.
Squad
Sri Lanka Women (Playing XI): Chamari Athapaththu(c), Umesha Thimashini, Hasini Perera, Hansima Karunaratne, Shashikala Siriwardene, Harshitha Madavi, Anushka Sanjeewani(w), Nilakshi de Silva, Kavisha Dilhari, Sathya Sandeepani, Udeshika Prabodhani
India Women (Playing XI): Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, Taniya Bhatia(w), Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Deepti Sharma, Veda Krishnamurthy, Shikha Pandey, Radha Yadav, Poonam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad
Sri Lanka batting
Sri Lanka has to set a huge score against India in order to make their maiden win in the World cup tournament. Umesha Thimashini and Athapaththu gets in the crease, Umesha Thimashini is on strike. Deepti Sharma opens the attack against Sri Lanka.
Athapaththu hit a boundary in the first and second over and start with an impressive strike. But Deepti Sharma uproot Umesha Thimashini’s wicket while she scored 2 runs from 5 balls. Harshitha Madavi walks to the crease and pair with Athapaththu. When Sri Lanka hit couple of boundary in Shikha Pandey’s over and a catch drop in the next over builds pressure over Indian players.
Gayakwad breaks the partnership
After the power play Sri Lanka scored 35 runs for a wicket loss and maintains the run rate nearly to 6 per over. Indian skipper introduced Gayakwad back in search of a wicket to break this partnership. Without any dis-appointment Gayakwad uproot Madavi in the very first ball and maiden the over.
Radha Yadav get in attack, where Athapaththu hit a superb six after getting down on one knee and nails the slog sweep. But Radha gets her revenge in the next ball by dismissing Athapaththu.
After 10 overs
Sri Lanka scored 52 runs for three wicket loss after 10 overs. Radha Yadav picks her second wicket in her second over in same style as for the first wicket. When Hasini Perera hit a boundary and lose her wicket in the second ball of the over.
Shashikala Siriwardene and Hansima Karunaratne paired for the next wicket. Gayakwad dropped a catch that come back to the her, who gets the hands to it, but fails to latch onto the catch. Again it’s Radha Yadav who picked her third wicket by dismissing Hansima Karunaratne for 7 runs. Sri Lanka scored 75 runs with 5 wicket lose for 75 runs from 14 overs.
Struggled Sri Lankan’s
Sri Lanka then struggled to score from there as Indian bowlers with their stunning performance restrict Sri Lanka from scoring further. Radha Yadav bags four wicket in total after uprooting Anushka Sanjeewani for 1 run. Poonam Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Deepti Sharma bagged single wicket for each. Whereas Rajeshwari Gayakwad bagged couple of wickets and Sri Lanka fold-up for 113 runs.
Over-view
A decent bowling effort by India Women as they have managed to restrict Sri Lanka to a mediocre total. Chamari Athapaththu – the Sri Lankan skipper played a pivotal knock at the top, whereas Kavisha Dilhari played a cameo towards the end. For India, Radha Yadav was the pick of the lot as they bagged four wickets. Gayakwad and others chipped in with wickets too. India should fancy their chances to chase this down
Indian batting
Young star shines well
India already won three matches and qualified for Semi finals and gets into their fourth match. With a run from a ball makes India win in this match against Sri Lanka. Shafali Verma and Mandhana gets in the crease, Shafali Verma is on strike. Prabodhani opens the attack against India.
Shafali Verma without any fear strike the first ball towards boundary that stuns Sri Lanka. Mandhana on the other hand start to strike in stead, Verma has been dropped in Siriwardene’s over that would be costly. Without any doubt Verma strikes couple of boundaries in that over.
In the very next over another drop for Shafali Verma where she rotates her strike. Mandhana finished that over with couple of boundaries, Indian openers gathered most of the runs through boundaries.
Prabodhani removed Mandhana in the 4th over when she scored 17 runs from 12 balls. Captain Harmanpreet Kaur gets in crease and paired with Verma. In the last over of the power play Verma strikes aggressively 15 runs where India scored 19 runs for a wicket loss.
Kaur made her contribution of 15 runs by striking 14 runs in Athapaththu’s over with boundaries alone and left to pavilion when Siriwardene dismissed her for 15 runs.
Shafali Verma missed her half century
Verma missed her half century while try to pick an unwanted single when she paired with Rodrigues. Another brilliant performance comes to an end without reaching her half-century. India scored 88 runs while Verma departures India has been placed in advanced position.
India’s consecutive victory
Deepti Sharma and Rodrigues dragged India towards victory without any pressure. India Women win by 7 wickets with 32 balls to spare and registered their fourth consecutive win in the tournament.
Player of the Match
Radha Yadav(India)
Bowling : 4 wickets for 23 runs in four overs
Radha Yadav : I was just thinking of bowling stump to stump and tried to keep it simple. We did well as a bowling unit. And we need to keep this momentum going forward. Yeah, she’s (Poonam) a legend.
Captain’s view
Harmanpreet Kaur: It’s really important to keep the momentum when you are winning games. You really work hard, so you can’t afford to lose that momentum. You can’t bowl same pace and lengths on these wickets, so you need to keep rotating the bowlers. Today I tried to be positive and got a few boundaries. In the upcoming games I’ll try to give my best. Shafali is someone who loves to play big shots, and we don’t want to stop her. She should continue doing the same and she should continue enjoying her game.
Chamari Athapaththu: I think it wasn’t a enough score to defend on this wicket. We dropped a few chances, especially that of Shafali. I gave a good start, but unfortunately I got out. If I would have stayed there, we might have scored 150-plus. We’ll try to play positive cricket and play to our potential against Bangladesh.
