Before the women’s Asia Cup semifinals on Tuesday, middle-order hitters Smriti Mandhana, the acting captain of India, was happy to see them rack up some much-needed runs against Nepal.
In their last group game against underdogs Nepal, Mandhana made the decision to rearrange the batting order to allow time to the other batsmen in the middle with habitual skipper Harmanpreet Kaur missing the game and India comfortably leading the group.
Shafali Verma (81) and Dayalan Hemalatha (47), who opened the batting and blasted their way to 122 in 14 overs, laid the groundwork before Mandhana, a typical opener, batted at the top.
They were then taken to a respectable 178 for 3 by S Sajana (10) and Jemmimah Rodrigues (28), which was sufficient as Nepal could only muster 96 for nine in 20 overs, losing by 82 runs.
“As an opener you don’t get a lot of games where you don’t bat. Much needed game time for all the other batters. The middle order hasn’t batted in the previous games,” Mandhana said during the post-match presentation.
“The conditions were different and it is always good to have game time under your belt. The middle order didn’t get time in the South Africa series as well, so good they could spend some time in the middle.”
According to Mandhana, every competition in the past several months has served as a springboard for the World T20, which will take place in Bangladesh later this year.
“Not only this tournament, but also in the last five or six months, the preparations started post WPL, there are a lot of fine tuning to be done and we have to keep improving, cannot go into a World Cup under prepared,” she said.
India might play Bangladesh in the semifinals, an opponent they had comprehensively defeated in a recent away series but Mandhana said they are not going to lower their guard.
“You don’t take any team (semifinal opponents) lightly, we have two days to rest and practice before we go out and apply ourselves.”
Shafali Verma, who was named player of the match for her explosive 48-ball knock of 81, claimed that she relied on her strength and that the execution was excellent.
“The consistency is improving but I could have finished the innings today,” said the opener, who slammed 12 fours and a six during her match-winning innings.
Shafali claimed it gave her a lot of confidence when she recorded the fastest double century in women’s Test history against South Africa in Chennai last month.
“Double hundred is big for any batter and I got plenty of confidence from that innings, I wasn’t in good form before that but the innings helped me get back my confidence.”
Indu Barma, the captain of Nepal, stated that his team will aim to return stronger having learned a great deal from their encounters with Pakistan and India.
“I am proud of my team. The effort we put in, we realised our weakness and will come back stronger.
“It was a great exposure to play against India. I am happy with my team, after 10 overs the bowlers got good momentum and restricted them to below 200. We got good experience from this tournament by playing against India and Pakistan. We made some good memories,” she said.
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