Resurgent India obliterate Lanka to lift eighth Women’s Asia Cup

Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana smacked blitzkrieg fifties before Deepti Sharma took a four-wicket haul as a rampant India defeated stuttering Sri Lanka by 72 runs in the final of the Women’s Asia Cup match in Dubai.

With the victory, India finished their campaign unbeaten and wrapped a record eighth Asian title - most by any team in the history of the tournament.

India posted a huge total of 183/5 and bundled out Lanka for 111 to lift the trophy. India hold a dominant overall head-to-head record, winning 26 out of 32 matches. Lanka have won five times with one match ending in a draw.

Chasing, Lanka were off to a faltering start as they lost their first wicket with just four runs on the board.

Kranti Gaud uprooted the stumps of the opener Imesha Dulani to give India the first breakthrough.

The dismissal of Imesha pushed Lanka on the backfoot from the beginning.

The responsibility of building the innings while chasing a big total came on Chamari Athapaththu along with Vishmi Gunaratne. Both the batters knuckled down to rebuild the innings.

They played out a few overs slowly and slowly accelerated the scoring. They shared a 58-run stand for the second wicket to keep the chase alive.

Chamari was more aggressive of the two as she hit four boundaries and two huge sixes in her 32-ball 36. Deepti sharma broke the dangerous-looking partnership.

Deepti lured the Lankan captain, she could not resist the temptation and came down the wicket. But she could not get to the pitch of the ball and missed it completely. A very agile Richa Ghosh collected the ball and took the bails off with the speed of lightning.

Chamari’s dismissal opened the floodgates for Indian bowlers.

A charged-up Indian bowling attack ripped through the fragile middle-order of Lanka.

Three balls later, Deepti caught Vishmi off her bowling to leave Lanka to derail the chase. After that Lanka kept on losing the wickets at regular intervals.

Harshitha Samarawickrama and Nilakshika Silva tried to revive the innings with a 23-run stand. After Deepti had triggered the collapse, Shree Charani obliterated the middle order with a destructive spell.

She accounted for the dismissal of four Lankan batters. Charani caught Harshitha off her own bowling before getting Nilakshika and Kavisha Dilhari caught by Kamalini and Nidhi respectively to leave Lanka in tatters. She picked Sugandika Kumari for her fourth scalp.

The Lanka batting line-up crumbled under pressure like a pack of cards, with no batter putting up any kind of resistance.

Earlier, at the half-way mark, the scoreboard read 98/0 after ten overs. Both the Indians batters were firing from both the end.

In an unprecedented display of batting in the women’s cricket, both Shafali and Smirti were clobbering the Lankan bowlers.

India batters had come out with a definite plan. Both the batters started carefully and kept the wickets in hand.

India were 35 for no loss in four overs. In the fifth over, Shafali changed gears and she plundered 20 runs off the fifth. She hit two sixes and one boundary in the over.

Kumari pulled it back for Lanka in the next over giving just two runs as India reached 57/0 at the end of first powerplay.

After the powerplay, the field was spread and Lanka heaved a sigh of relief that the flow of the runs would be curtailed, oblivious of the catastrophe that was about to hit them.

In the next six overs, both the Indian openers accumulated 64 runs. It was Shafali, who was doing the bulk of the scoring as Smirti preferred to be a silent partner. Shafali flexed her muscles and took 12 runs off the seventh over.

In the next over, Shafali sprinted to her fifty with a boundary off just 24 balls. Shafali had already raced to her 36th fifty in just 24 balls. It is the fastest in the Women’s T20 Asia Cup.

The record for the previous fastest was Smriti’s 25-ball fifty against Sri Lanka in the final of the 2022 edition of the Asia Cup. Now the Indian eves hold the record for the top five fastest fifties in the T20Is and three of them have been smashed by Shafali alone.

Smirti also joined the party as she hit Chamudi Praboda for a six to steal 13 off the overs.