Explained: Why India Women's cricket team qualified for semi-finals despite rain washing out QF in Asian Games 2023

India Women's cricket team will now face winners of QF4 in the semi-final of the Asian Games 2023.

Indian Women’s Cricket Team qualified for the semifinal round in the ongoing Asian Games 2023 despite a rain washout in the quarter-final. They will meet the winner of QF 4 in their next game at the event on 24th September. Quarter-final 4 game will be held between Bangladesh and Hong Kong. The winner of this encounter will go on and play against the Indian Women’s Team on Sunday. 

Why India qualified despite a washout?

The Indian team advanced to the next round despite a rain washout due to their higher seeding in the ICC Women’s rankings in T20I cricket. India are currently ranked 4th in the ICC rankings while Malaysians are way behind in 27th place. This gave the Indian team an advantage in case of a draw in the ongoing Asian Games 2023. Along with India, the other top-ranked teams are Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. 

All these 4 full-member nations directly qualified for the quarter-final round, while the other participants played in the group round as well as in the pre-quarter final game. In the next quarter-final game, Pakistan will be taking on Indonesia on Thursday. Currently, the game is delayed due to rain, and in case of a washout Pakistan will qualify for the next round as they are also seeded higher in the rankings over Indonesia. 

Smriti Mandhana captained the Indian team

Smriti Mandhana was in charge as captain due to Harmanpreet Kaur’s absence from the team. Harmanpreet Kaur is currently facing a two-match ban by ICC and will be allowed to play only in the Gold Medal match or Bronze Medal game if India qualify. Harmanpreet Kaur was penalised for her behaviour in the final game of an ODI series against Bangladesh. She protested against poor umpiring in the game and also misbehaved with the Bangladesh captain. 

Malaysia won the toss and invited the Indian team to bat. The Indian team put 173 runs on the board in a 15-over-a-side game due to rain. Shafali Verma (67), Jemimah Rodrigues (47), Smriti Mandhana (27), and Richa Ghosh (21) all had a good batting practice against an inexperienced Malaysian attack. Malaysian innings was not possible due to rain and the game was called off after just the 2nd ball in the 2nd innings.