India beat West Indies by six wickets on the basis of Deepti and Richa
Richa Ghosh (44 not out) and captain Harmanpreet Kaur (33) stitched a 72-run partnership for the fourth wicket after Deepti Sharma’s superb bowling helped India beat West Indies with 11 balls to spare in their Women’s T20 World Cup Group B match here on Wednesday. Defeated by six wickets and registered second consecutive win in the tournament. India defeated Pakistan by seven wickets in their opening match. This is the 13th consecutive defeat of the West Indies team in this format. Deepti took three wickets for 15 runs in four overs, as the West Indies team could only manage 118 runs for six wickets.
India won by losing four wickets in 18.1 overs. Harmanpreet hit three fours in her 42-ball innings while Richa, who hit the winning four, sent the ball across the boundary line five times in her unbeaten innings of 32 balls. Earlier, Stephanie Taylor (42 runs) and Sheiman Campbell (30 runs) put the West Indies in a strong position in the match by sharing a 73-run partnership for the second wicket, but Deepti got India back by walking both in the same over. Gave.
During this, Deepti became India’s first woman cricketer to take 100 wickets in T20 Internationals. Renuka Singh (22 runs in four overs) and Pooja Vastrakar (21 runs in four overs) also took one wicket each for India. Chasing the target, Shafali Verma (28 runs) and Smriti Mandhana (10 runs) got the team off to an aggressive start adding 28 runs in the first two overs. Shafali hit three fours in the first over of Shamela Connell, while Smriti hit two consecutive fours against Shenell Henry.
After battering the pacers, West Indies skipper Hayley Mathews (1/12) opted to go with the spinners, which proved to be effective. Mathews himself and Karishma Ramharakh (2/14) restricted the runs in the next six overs, taking three crucial wickets in the space of nine runs. While Karishma gave West Indies the first success by stumping Smriti in the fourth over, Mathews gave India a second blow by catching the catch of Jemima Rodrigues (one run), who scored an unbeaten half-century against Pakistan.
Karishma took the crucial wicket of Shafali in the eighth over of the innings. Effie Fletcher made no mistake in catching Shafali’s aerial sweep shot. He hit five fours in his 23-ball innings. While fielding on the last ball of the same over, Taylor lay down on the ground due to back pain and the game was halted for some time. He was taken out on a stretcher. Harmanpreet hit two consecutive fours against Fletcher who came to bowl in the next over. 16 runs came from this over and the pressure from the Indian batsmen eased to a great extent.
The two then continued to run and steal runs, sending the ball across the boundary line in between. In the 17th over of the innings, India needed four runs to win when Harmanpreet was caught by Campbell off the bowling of Henry in the course of hitting a big shot. On the first ball of the next over, Richa gave the team victory by hitting a four. West Indies won the toss and elected to bat but on the very first ball of the second over, Pooja Vastrakar was caught by Richa Ghosh to end skipper Hayley Mathews’ two-run innings.
After this success, Indian bowlers did not give West Indies a chance to play freely. Campbell and Taylor eased some of the pressure off Rajeshwari Gaikwad, who came in to bowl in the fifth over. After the powerplay, the team’s score was 29 runs for one wicket. Taylor then took it upon himself to increase the run rate, hitting a four in each over from the 8th to the 12th. Meanwhile, both completed the half-century partnership in the 11th over.
Campbell, who has been slow so far, sent Pooja’s ball across the boundary line in the 13th over. In the 14th over of the match, captain Harmanpreet Kaur once again handed the ball to Deepti and the bowler brought back the team by walking Campbell and Taylor within four balls. Taylor hit six in his 40-ball knock while Campbell hit three fours in his 36-ball innings. While Smriti Mandhana took a diving catch on Campbell’s reverse sweep, Taylor was trapped leg before.
Smriti ran out Shenell Henry (two runs) in the next over, reducing West Indies from 77 for one to 79 for four. Deepti dropped the catch of Shadin Nation in the 16th over off Rajeshwari. This batsman hit two fours against Devika Vaidya in the next over to take the team’s score past 100. Renuka dismissed Shakiba Gajanabi (15 runs) in the last ball of her quota in the 19th over, while Deepti conceded just three runs in the last over and took the wicket of Effie Fletcher (0). This is the 100th victim of his international career in this format. Nation remained unbeaten on 21 off 18 balls.
