Sri Lanka managed to claim a Silver medal in the Women’s Cricket competition of the Asian Games 2023, as they went down fighting against India in the Final of the tournament played today (25th September) at Hangzhou in China.
Indian Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and opted to bat first, but they got off to a shaky start as the opening batter Shafali Verma was stumped of the bowling off Sugandika Kumari for just 9 runs in the 4th over of the innings.
However, Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues revived India’s innings, adding 73-run stand for the second wicket.
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Sri Lanka managed to fight back, keeping things tight with the ball as the Indians found it difficult score latter part of the innings.
The Sri Lankan bowlers conceded only 16 runs in the last five overs while picking 5 wickets to restrict a strong Indian batting lineup for 116 runs at the end of 20 overs.
The veteran seamer Udeshika Prabodhani and left-arm spinners Inoka Ranaweera and Sugandika Kumari picked up 2 wickets each for Sri Lanka.
In reply, Sri Lanka witnessed a shocking start to their innings as they lost the first 3 wickets for just 14 runs inside the powerplay phase.
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Nilakshi de Silva and Hasini Perera rebuilt the innings with crucial knocks of 20s, but there was hardly any assistance from the lower order batters as Sri Lanka fell short of 19 runs off the target.
Indian seamer Titas Sadhu created havoc on the Sri Lankan batting lineup, picking up 3 wickets for just 6 runs in her 4-over spell, guiding India to the Gold medal.
Result
| Batsmen | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smriti Mandhana | c Udeshika Prabodhani b Inoka Ranaweera | 46 | 45 | 4 | 1 | 102.22 |
| Shafali Verma | st Anushka Sanjeewani b Sugandika Kumari | 9 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 60.00 |
| Jemimah Rodrigues | c Vishmi Gunaratne b Udeshika Prabodhani | 42 | 40 | 5 | 0 | 105.00 |
| Richa Ghosh | c Anushka Sanjeewani b Inoka Ranaweera | 9 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 150.00 |
| Harmanpreet Kaur | c Anushka Sanjeewani b Udeshika Prabodhani | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 40.00 |
| Pooja Vastrakar | c Vishmi Gunaratne b Sugandika Kumari | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 50.00 |
| Deepti Sharma | not out | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 33.33 |
| Amanjot Kaur | run out (Anushka Sanjeewani) | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 50.00 |
| Extras | 4 (b 0 , lb 1 , nb 0, w 3, pen 0) |
| Total | 116/7 (20 Overs, RR: 5.8) |
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oshadi Ranasinghe | 2 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 5.50 | |
| Udeshika Prabodhani | 3 | 0 | 16 | 2 | 5.33 | |
| Inoshi Priyadarshani | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0.33 | |
| Sugandika Kumari | 4 | 0 | 30 | 2 | 7.50 | |
| Chamari Athapaththu | 2.5 | 0 | 19 | 0 | 7.60 | |
| Kavisha Dilhari | 1.1 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 6.36 | |
| Inoka Ranaweera | 4 | 0 | 21 | 2 | 5.25 | |
| Batsmen | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chamari Athapaththu | c Deepti Sharma b Titas Sadhu | 12 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 100.00 |
| Anushka Sanjeewani | c Harmanpreet Kaur b Titas Sadhu | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 20.00 |
| Vishmi Gunaratne | b Titas Sadhu | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Hasini Perera | c Pooja Vastrakar b Rajeshwari Gayakwad | 25 | 22 | 4 | 1 | 113.64 |
| Nilakshi de Silva | b Pooja Vastrakar | 23 | 34 | 1 | 1 | 67.65 |
| Oshadi Ranasinghe | c Titas Sadhu b Deepti Sharma | 19 | 26 | 2 | 0 | 73.08 |
| Kavisha Dilhari | c Richa Ghosh b Devika Vaidya | 5 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 62.50 |
| Sugandika Kumari | st Richa Ghosh b Rajeshwari Gayakwad | 5 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 62.50 |
| Inoshi Priyadarshani | not out | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 |
| Udeshika Prabodhani | not out | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 |
| Extras | 5 (b 2 , lb 3 , nb 0, w 0, pen 0) |
| Total | 97/8 (20 Overs, RR: 4.85) |
| Bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deepti Sharma | 4 | 0 | 25 | 1 | 6.25 | |
| Pooja Vastrakar | 4 | 1 | 20 | 1 | 5.00 | |
| Titas Sadhu | 4 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 1.50 | |
| Rajeshwari Gayakwad | 3 | 0 | 20 | 2 | 6.67 | |
| Amanjot Kaur | 1 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6.00 | |
| Devika Vaidya | 4 | 0 | 15 | 1 | 3.75 | |
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