Bowlers shine as India maul Pakistan in Women’s Asia Cup

Shree Charani and Prema Rawat took three wickets each to help India secure a seven-wicket victory over Pakistan in the Women’s Asia Cup in Dubai on Saturday.

After bundling out Pakistan for 55, their lowest total in T20s, India sprinted to the target of 56 runs for the loss of just three wickets.

Shafali Verma got the chase off to a superb start with a six off the first ball. However, Pakistan did manage to make some inroads with a brief fightback.

Pakistani captain Fatima Sana dismissed Shafali off her own bowling before having Prateeka Rawal caught by Muneeba three balls later, reducing India to 18/2.

It did ignite some hopes in Pakistan of a fightback. In her next over, she trapped Smirti Mandhana but Harmanpreet Kaur (18) and Deepti Sharma (12) played sensibly and took their team over the line in just 8.4 overs for the loss of three wickets.

The match lasted just over two hours, well short of its scheduled four-hour duration.

India and Pakistan have played 17 T20 matches out of which 14 have been won by India with Pakistan just winning three. In ODIs, the record is even worse as out of 18 matches, India have won all.

Before this, Pakistan’s lowest against India was 63 and 56 against New Zealand in the 2024 Women’s World Cup.

Earlier, Shafali gave India the first breakthrough by breaking the opening partnership of Muneeba Ali and Shawaal Zulfiqar.

Both the openers were cruising along nicely without any problem. Indian bowlers were desperate to break the partnership.

Shafali rattled the stumps of Muneeba as Pakistan lost their first wicket for 27 runs. After hitting Shafali for a boundary, Muneeba again gave herself room to in a bid to hit her square off the wicket. But she exposed all three stumps and Shafali kept it straight. Muneeba failed to connect it with the bat and the ball went on to hit the stumps.

Pakistan would have been three for 27 had Prateeka Rawal not dropped two catches. She dropped Muneeba when the Pakistani opener was batting on a personal score of six. One over later, she again put Muneeba down at the boundary ropes off Shefali.

But the Indian spinner bounced back to clean bowled Muneeba, which also triggered another collapse of Pakistan. The dismissal of Muneeba not only opened the floodgates for Pakistan but also exposed the fragile middle-order.

Shree Charani ripped through the top order as Pakistan lost four wickets within a span of five runs. Charani flighted a delivery, inviting Gull Feroza to come down the pitch.

Feroza could not resist the temptation. But she could not get to the pitch of the ball as a result of which the ball took the leading edge and Nandani Sharma completed a clean catch. Two wickets in the space of two runs put Pakistani batters under pressure.

Four balls later, Charani trapped Shawaal in front of wickets to make it 29/3. Three wickets in quick succession pushed Pakistan on the backfoot completely. They needed a big partnership to revive the innings and stay in the match.

But the Indian bowlers had different plans. They did not want to be complacent and kept pushing harder. They tested the mettle of Pakistani batters. The strategy was simple. They placed the fielding on the off side and invited the Pakistani batters to play into the vacant areas.

Ayesha Zafar became the victim of the same strategy. Charani flighted a delivery and pitched it outside off.

Ayesha tried to drag it from outside off to the square leg area. She managed to get the top edge of the ball, which landed in the safe hands of Harmanpreet Kaur.

With four top batters back in the pavilion just for 32 runs, the onus of building the innings came on captain Fatima Sana and Sadaf Shamas. Both of them failed to live up to the challenge.

Sadaf never looked comfortable against the spinners. After facing eight balls, she failed to read the line of the delivery and missed it completely while trying to play it across the line. The ball deflected from her pads and went on to hit the stumps.

Pakistan badly needed someone to anchor the faltering innings but their batters failed to apply themselves. Pakistan kept on losing the wickets not at regular intervals but in wholesale. They were reduced from 27/0 to 35/6.

Their batters wilted under the enormous pressure and their batting line-up crumbled like playing cards. Pakistan batters had no embellishment in their repertoire to counter the Indian spin attack.

Fatima faced seven balls but failed to open her account. Deepti Sharma found her plumb in front of wickets as Pakistan captain went back, leaving her team in tatters.

Eyman Fatima and Umm-e-Haani added 10 valuable runs for the seventh wicket to reignite some hopes of revival. When they seemed to have got their eyes in, Eyman threw her wicket to a suicidal single. She was found short of her ground while trying to take a single that never existed.

Rawat got rid of Umm-e-Haani and Nashra Sandhu to complete her three-wicket haul before Deepti Sharma had Tuba Hassan stumped to bowl out Pakistan for their lowest-ever T20 total.