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On Tuesday, July 23, India defeated Nepal by a big margin of 82 runs in their third and final Group A match in the Women’s Asia Cup 2024 at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium. With their third successive win in the tournament, built on the back of Shafali Verma and the bowlers, the Indian women’s team qualified through to the semi-final.
For the unversed, Smriti Mandhana led India against Nepal in the Women’s Asia Cup 2024 match after the captain Harmanpreet Kaur was given a rest. Her decision to bat first paid rich dividends for the Women in Blue with the openers Shafali Verma and Dayalan Hemalatha stitched together a stand of 122 runs.
Dayalan Hemalatha accumulated 47 off 42, while Shafali Verma breezed her way to 81 off 48 with 12 fours and one maximum before Sita Rana Magar picked up their wickets in back-to-back overs. Following this, Jemimah Rodrigues struck five fours on her way to 28 off 15, to get the India total up to 178/3 in their allotted overs.
The bowling innings for India began in style when Arundhati Reddy castled the Nepalese opener Samjhana Khadka in the powerplay stage before doing the same against Sita Rana Magar in the middle overs. Radha Yadav picked up the key wicket of the Nepal captain, Indu Barma, for 14 of 18, to put them firmly behind in the contest.
Deepti Sharma got into the act with a couple of wickets of Rubina Chhetrya and Kabita Joshi in quick succession to break the back of the Nepalese batting effort. She ended the night with figures of 3/13 in her four-over spell, to ensure that Nepal were restricted to 96/9 in their allotted overs.
