Asian Games: India women's cricket team bag historic GOLD after defeating Sri Lanka women

Indian Women's Cricket team defeated Sri Lanka in Final in Hangzhou.

Indian women’s team made history at Asian Games 2023 in China. The girls are bringing gold home after winning their gold medal game against Sri Lanka in Hangzhou, China. India defeated Sri Lanka women’s team by 19 runs to clinch their first-ever gold medal in Asian Games history. For the first time in Asian Games history, BCCI sent its men’s and women’s teams to fight for glory. Young Titas Sadhu bowled a magical spell to win the game for India.

Indian batters struggled against Sri Lanka

Batting first, team India posted a modest total of 116 runs on the board. Indian batters struggled against Sri Lankan spinners and could not go past the 120 runs mark. Sugandika Kumari made Shafali Verma struggle in the power-play. Shafali went early on just nine runs after her shaky 15-balls innings. Smriti Mandhana (46) and Jemimah Rodrigues (42) added 73 runs for the second wicket to give India a platform to reach a modest score. After this partnership, Indian middle-order collapsed poorly.

Inoka Ranaweera, Udeshika Prabodhini, and Sugandha Kumari all picked up two wickets each and were highly effective against Indian batters. Sri Lanka restricted India to just 116 runs as they conceded just 27 runs and picked up 5 wickets in the last 5 overs. Harmanpreet Kaur didn’t have a great comeback, as she could only stay at the wicket for 5 balls and score only 2. Only Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues were the two batters with double-digit scores in Indian innings.

Titas Sidhu's magical spell to win the GOLD

Similarly, Sri Lankan batters also found it hard to connect the ball, and Indian bowlers dominated the game in the second innings. 18-years-old Titas Sadhu’s medium pace was enough for India to script history at the biggest Asian sports exhibition. Titas Sadhu conceded only 6 runs in her 4 overs and picked up 3 wickets. Sadhu rattled Sri Lankan top-order in power-play and brought them down to 3 wickets in 5 overs.

Sri Lankan middle-order did try to make the contest a little more interesting when Nilakshi De Silva (23) added 35 runs with Hasini Perera (25) and then 28 runs with Oshadi Ranasinghe (19). The Indian spinner didn’t allow them to go long and restricted Sri Lanka to just 97 runs. Sri Lanka had to satisfy themselves with the silver medal, and Bangladesh won the bronze medal after defeating Pakistan earlier on Monday.