Star player Jemimah Rodrigues’s great innings helps team India Women to beat Sri Lanka Women in the series opener.
A blistering innings from Jemimah Rodrigues helped the Indian women’s team get off to a winning start in the T20 series. In the first T20 match played in Visakhapatnam on Sunday, the Indian women’s team defeated Sri Lanka by eight wickets. With this win, India has taken a 1-0 lead in the five-match T20 series. The second match of the series will be played in Visakhapatnam on December 23.
The Indian women’s team restricted Sri Lanka to a score of 121 for six wickets in the first T20 match. Sri Lankan opener Vishmi Gunaratne was the top scorer with 39 runs off 43 balls, while Hasini Perera contributed 20 runs and Harshitha Samarawickrama added 21 runs. The target was easily chased down in 14.4 overs with the loss of just two wickets, thanks to an unbeaten half-century from Jemimah Rodrigues. Jemimah Rodrigues remained unbeaten on 69 runs off 44 balls, hitting 10 fours in her innings. Harmanpreet Kaur scored an unbeaten 15 runs. Smriti Mandhana contributed 25 runs and Shafali Verma scored nine runs.
India won the toss and elected to bowl
After being invited to bat, Sri Lankan captain Chamari Athapaththu adopted an aggressive approach from the start, sending a seemingly innocuous delivery from Kranti Gaud to the boundary for a four. Deepti Sharma, who was recently named ‘Player of the Series’ in India’s ODI World Cup winning campaign, (1 wicket for 20 runs in four overs) made a spectacular diving save in the next over, turning a certain boundary into a single. Athapaththu then hit two fours off Gaud’s next three deliveries. Seeing the aggressive play of the left-handed Athapaththu, Gaud switched to bowling ‘around the wicket’, and the change of angle worked. Her delivery went between bat and pad, hitting the stumps and giving India their first breakthrough.
Hasini Perera hit a boundary off Gaud towards deep fine leg, after which Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur handed the ball to Deepti Sharma within the powerplay. Hasini couldn’t capitalize on the loose deliveries, and Deepti bowled a maiden over. At the end of the powerplay, Sri Lanka were 31 for one wicket.
Making her debut, Vaishnavi Sharma (16 runs in four overs), who bowled considerably slower than her left-arm spin partner Sri Charani, had an economical start to her international career, giving away only three runs in her first over. Hasini hit a reverse sweep for a boundary off Sri Charani’s bowling, and in the next over, Sri Charani dropped an easy catch at short fine leg, giving the Sri Lankan batter a life. If that catch had been taken, Vaishnavi would have had her first international wicket.
However, in an attempt to score quickly, Hasini was dismissed in the next over. She was caught by Gowd while trying to play a reverse sweep off Deepti’s bowling. Despite the increasing dew making it difficult for the Indian bowlers to grip the ball, they showed excellent control and restricted Sri Lanka to 55 for two in the first 10 overs. Sri Charani had a poor day on the field and also dropped a catch of Harshitha Samarawickrama off Arundhati Reddy’s bowling. Indian bowlers Deepti Sharma, Sri Charani, and Kranti Gowd each took one wicket.
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