Smriti scores ton as India register second consecutive victory in Women’s Asia Cup

Smriti Mandhana smacked a blitzkrieg century as India defeated Hong Kong by a huge margin of 137 runs in their Women’s Asia Cup match.

After posting a huge total of 193/5, India bundled out Hong Kong to a paltry 56. Hong Kong were never in the hunt right from the beginning. They lost the first wicket with just two runs on the board.

After that they kept on losing the wickets at regular intervals. Nandini Sharma clean bowled Mariko Hill for a nought to push Hong Kong on the backfoot from the word go.

Yasmin Daswani and Natasha Miles kept the Indian bowlers at bay for a brief time with a 27-run stand for the second wicket.

Deepti Sharma broke the resistance and Rawat got rid of Miles and Kary Chan in quick succession. Chan’s dismissal opened the floodgates for Indian bowlers as Hong Kong lost the last five wickets within a span of four runs. Deepti took three wickets.

Earlier, India were off to a slow but a steady start. Both the openers Smriti Mandhana and Shefali Verma played watchfully in the beginning before pacing up their innings gradually.

Hong Kong bowlers did quite well to keep the Indian openers in check, India had reached 27 for no loss.

Mandhana drilled through the covers on the first delivery of the fifth over to make her intentions clear.

She capped the over two boundaries off the last two deliveries to take 12 runs off Maryam Bibi.

Shefali also flexed her muscles to steer Marina Lamplough towards the fine leg for a four. She got underneath the ball and picked it up over the mid-wicket for the maximum result.

Shefali did not stop here as she hit a boundary and a six off the next two deliveries respectively to collect 22 runs off the sixth over as India raced to 60 without loss in six overs from 28 in four overs.

Alison Siu bowled a tight seventh over, conceding only five runs off it to contain the flow of runs. But that was enough. Hong Kong needed to break the dangerous-looking partnership to put up some kind of resistance against the mighty India.

Their wait finally got over. After Smriti collected nine runs off the first three deliveries with the help of two fours, Ruchita bounced back to get rid of Shefali.

She did not give Shefali any room to play her shots. Shefali tried to take the aerial route in frustration.

Lamplough saw the lofted ball and ran from the boundary line to complete a clean catch at the long off as India lost the first wicket at 74.

Dismissal of Shefali brought a temporary relief in the Hong Kong camp. But they were oblivious of the fact that the worst was yet to come.

After breaking the partnership, Hong Kong bowlers briefly started dominating as they choked the runs for two overs. They just gave away five and six runs respectively in the next two overs, bowling wicket to wicket.

But Smriti broke the shackles and brought up her 36th fifty off 40 deliveries with a six. After reaching fifty, Smriti started cutting loose.

Smriti changed the gears and pressed the accelerator with the full throttle. She scored the first fifty runs off 41 balls and the next 74 came off just 24 deliveries.

She put away anything loose, short or wide straight to the ropes. Hong Kong bowlers did not have any idea how to stop her.

Prateek Rawal and Richa Ghosh once again failed to capitalise on the strong start. Parteek holed out to Bibi off Joyleen Kaur while Richa was caught and bowled by Lamplough.

Smriti, on the other end, kept Hong Kong fielders busy. She took 18 runs off Ruchita with the help of three sixes. She played a cut off Lamplough on the off to sprint to her second century in the T20s.

After reaching the century, she added 24 more runs to her personal score before an Iqra Sahar throw found her short of the ground as an epic innings came to the only possible end.

India lost quite a few wickets in quick succession in the end as they folded their innings on 193/5. At one stage they were looking set for a total of 225 plus.

Mohammad Abdullah, Senior Sports Reporter