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On September 25, Monday, the Indian women’s cricket team defeated Sri Lanka by 19 runs to win the gold medal at the Asian Games 2023. With this epic win at the Zhejiang University of Technology Cricket Field in Hangzhou, Team India have managed to reach the top step of the podium in their first appearance at the multi-sporting continental games.
Follow: Asian Games 2023 Medal Tally
For the unversed, Harmanpreet Kaur, the captain of Indian women’s cricket team, who is making her first appearance at the Asian Games 2023 after serving her two-match ban, won the toss and chose to bat first. But one of the openers, Shafali Verma lost her wicket in the powerplay while trying to break the shackles, getting stumped by Anuskha Sanjeewani off the bowling of Udeshika Prabhodani.
On a difficult batting pitch, Jemimah Rodrigues joined Smriti Mandhana in the middle, stitching together an important partnership of 73 runs for the second wicket. These two cricketers managed to keep their strike-rate better than a run a ball, to put India in a decent position to attack the Sri Lanka bowlers in the last five overs.
But, after Smriti Mandhana (46 off 45) and Jemimah Rodrigues (42 off 40) got dismissed in quick succession, the batting lineup started to falter. At the end of 20 overs, India could only manage a total of 116/7, which could be considered a below par total in T20Is, irrespective of the pitch.
The defence of the total in the Asian Games 2023 final for India began on a great note, with Titas Sadhu picking up three wickets in the powerplay to put Sri Lanka on the backfoot. Hasini Perera scored 25 off 22 to keep the hopes of her team alive, but the rest of the Indian bowlers chipped-in with wickets at regular intervals to curtail them to 97/8 in their allotted 20 overs.
