Shafali steers India to Women’s Asia Cup final

Shafali Verma lived a charmed life for her stroke stuffed 64 off 40 balls as India marched into one more Girls’s Asia Cup closing with a snug 40-run win over Bangladesh right here on Thursday.

On a sluggish floor the place batting was a battle for majority of the batters, Shafali stood out together with her fluent effort to take India to 149 for six. The Indian opener was dropped as many as 3 times and she or he duly made Bangladesh pay for these errors.

Contemplating the circumstances and India’s bowling sources, the seven-time champions had been anticipated to defend the goal and so they did quite comfortably, limiting Bangladesh to 109 for 7 in 20 overs.

Bangladesh by no means threatened India regardless of the aggressive intent of opener Juairiya Ferdous (14 off 18). Finally Ferdous and her opening companion Dilara Akter (21 off 26) fell whereas making an attempt to clear the mid-wicket boundary. Kranti Gaud’s operating catch to get trip of Akter was an excellent effort on an in any other case extraordinary day for the fielders.

Just like the final sport, Pratika Rawal dropped a few catches. The Indian spin trio of Deepti Sharma (3/26), Shree Charani (1/14) and Prema Rawat (1/21) too delivered in spin pleasant circumstances.

It has been a low scoring match primarily because of the sluggish nature of the pitches right here. Contemplating that and Bangaldesh’s batting, India knew deep down that they had received sufficient on the board. They are going to play with both Pakistan or Sri Lanka within the closing scheduled for Sunday.

With seven titles (4 in 50-over and three T20s), India are essentially the most profitable crew within the match. That they had a suffered a stunning loss to Sri Lanka within the earlier version.

Earlier, the Bangladesh bowling assault, which has been spectacular within the match, was capable of maintain the completed Indian batters quiet for majority of the innings.

In whole, 4 dropped catches let Bangladesh down else India would have struggled to get previous the 120-run mark.

India captain Harmanpreet Kaur (24 not out off 28), often a very good participant of spin, struggled for majority of her innings solely managing 4 runs off her first 16 balls.

Shafali single-handedly steered India to a aggressive whole however her outstanding stroke of luck, having been dropped on 6, 11 and 56. Whereas the batters within the high 4 batted at a sub 100 strike charge, Shafali ended with a formidable strike charge of 160 that included three sixes off the spinners.

The damaging opener performed her photographs throughout the park and her innings included a entrance foot pull off pacer Marufa Akter, reverse sweep and big hits down the bottom off the spinners. India did properly to achieve 45 for one within the powerplay however couldn’t speed up within the center overs.

India’s new quantity three Pratika Rawal (20 off 24) has been beneath strain within the match however on Thursday she made a scorching begin, a duplicate e book cowl drive off Akter. Later in her innings, she got here out of the crease to hit a six earlier than falling to the identical bowler.

Richa Ghosh (21 off 16) too was sluggish to get off the blocks however managed so as to add useful runs. Skipper Harmanpreet redeemed herself with a few sixes in direction of the top.