Shafali Verma displayed her match-winning prowess with an impressive 55 off 44 balls as India defeated Bangladesh by 59 runs to win their fourth match and confirm a semi-final spot in the Women's Asia Cup T20 in Sylhet on Saturday, October 8. It was an important win as India lost their previous match to Pakistan on Friday.
It was a much-improved victory for the side, with the 'Women In Blue' putting up a winning performance scoring 159 for 5, largely due to the 96-run opening stand between Shafali and stand-in skipper Smriti Mandhana (47 off 38 balls).
Credit also goes to Jemimah Rodrigues, whose 35 not out off just 24 balls helped the Indian team score 159. Bangladesh managed 100 for 7 at the end of 20 overs and never looked like being in the hunt for a victory.
With 8 points from five games, India is on top of the seven-team table with a match left in the round-robin stage.
Having never chased a total beyond 142 in their entire T20I history, Bangladesh tried their best but could never force the momentum against a solid Indian bowling attack which kept things tight.
After a shoddy fielding effort against Pakistan, it improved by a couple of notches on the day as there were no easy in-store runs. The hosts couldn't even score 50 in the first 10 overs and scoring more than 110 runs in the back-10 was virtually impossible for them.
None of the Indian bowlers was off target for the better part with Sneh Rana (1/17 in 3 overs) and Deepti Sharma (2/13 in 4 overs) being economical as ever. Even Shafali's loopy leg breaks (2/10 in 4 overs) seemed unplayable.
The slowness of the track also meant that spinners could vary the pace and most of the balls were not coming onto the bat. The two openers Fargana Haque (30 off 40 balls) and Murshida Khatun (21 off 25 balls) could add only 45 in the first nine overs and Bangladesh actually was thrown out of the contest at that stage.
Earlier, Shafali showed why she is one of the most destructive batters in this format as she struck five fours and two huge sixes. En route to her fourth half-century in T20Is, Shafali also completed 1000 runs in the format. With the elegant skipper Mandhana for company, the duo added 96 in just 12 overs. Mandhana as usual peppered the field with six crisp boundaries.
Once both Mandhana and Shafali, who tried a reverse slog, were dismissed, Bangladesh could briefly put brakes on scoring but the in-form Jemimah used her cricketing smarts to find the gaps as she and Deepti Sharma added 29 in just 2.3 overs to set a challenging target.
