Brilliant innings by Shefali Verma, India beats Sri Lanka by 8 wickets

New Delhi: The Indian women’s cricket team achieved its third consecutive win in the five-match T20 series against Sri Lanka, giving it an unassailable lead. In the third match played at Greenfield International Stadium, India defeated Sri Lanka by 8 wickets. Batting first, Sri Lanka was all out for only 112 runs, which India easily achieved by losing 2 wickets in 13.2 overs.

Renuka Singh’s brilliant bowling

At the beginning of the match, captain Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and decided to bowl, which proved to be absolutely right. Returning fast bowler Renuka Singh Thakur took 4 wickets while giving 21 runs in 4 overs. Whereas, Deepti Sharma took 3 wickets for only 18 runs in 4 overs. The excellent performance of both these bowlers completely affected Sri Lanka’s batting, where no batsman was able to cross the 30-run mark. Imisha Dulani (27) and Hasini Perera (25) put up a bit of a fight, but due to regular fall of wickets the team could not score big. With Deepti’s third wicket in this match, she set the record of becoming the highest wicket-taker along with Australia’s Megan Shute by taking 151 wickets in Women’s T20 International.

Shefali Verma’s blazing innings

However, the start of the Indian team chasing the target was not good. Smriti Mandhana was out after scoring only 1 run, while Jemimah Rodrigues contributed 9 runs. But opener Shefali Verma batted brilliantly and completely dominated the Sri Lankan bowlers. Shefali scored a half-century in just 24 balls and played a match-winning inning of unbeaten 79 runs in 42 balls. His innings included 11 fours and 3 sixes, with a strike rate of more than 188. Captain Harmanpreet Kaur contributed with 21 unbeaten runs and led the team to a comfortable victory. India achieved the target with 40 balls remaining.

This victory indicates the strength of the Indian team, which had prevailed over Sri Lanka in both the previous matches. The return of Renuka and Deepti provided strength to the bowling, while Shefali’s aggressive batting provided momentum for the team. The remaining two matches of the series will be played on December 28 and 30 at the same ground, where India will aim for a clean sweep. The Sri Lankan team seems to be struggling so far and it is essential to improve their batting.