India Women's Cricket Team Journey In Asia Cup 2024

After the Men’s Cricket team made the whole nation proud by winning the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup trophy in the 9th edition of the ICC event, the Women's Cricket team are just a few steps away from clinching their 8th title, the Asia Cup in the Women Asia Cup T20 tournament, which is taking place in Sri Lanka with along with 8 teams. The Women's cricket team has reached the semi-final stage of the event by defeating Nepal in their last match at Rangiri Dambulla Stadium in Dambulla.  

You might not know, but the Women's Cricket team have won the most editions so far in the tournament. Out of 8, they have won 7. Not only that! They are currently, the title defender after defeating Sri Lanka Women by 8 wickets at Dambulla. Through this article, we are going to talk about the journey of the Women's Cricket team in the Womens Asia Cup 2024.

India entered the marquee event on a high note after defeating Proteas Women in a Test Match and later drawing the series of 3-match T20I series.

India Women vs Pakistan Women

India Womens started their tournament opener against their arch-rivals Pakistan Womens at Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium in Dambulla. After winning the toss, Pak team opted to bat first and scored 108 runs in 19.2 overs against a strong bowling attack of Indian Women, who dismantled the arch-rivals by picking their 10 wickets. Except for Radha Yadav, every Indian bowler picked more than 2 wickets, with Deepti Sharma getting 3 wickets haul by conceding just 20 runs in his 4 overs of the spell.

Later, in the second innings Indian Women’s easily chased down the target with more than 5 overs remaining. The Indian openers gave a solid start to the team by scoring 85 runs in 9.3 overs. Shefali Verma and Smriti Mandhana Scored 40 and 45 runs respectively, taking the Indian team to their first victory of Women's Asia Cup 2024.

India Women vs UAE Women

After showing their strong bowling against the arch-rivals, the Women's cricket team showed their impeccable batting skills against UAE team, where they posted a mammoth total of 201 runs in 20 overs in their 2nd match of the tournament with the help of Captain Harmanpreet Kaur and Wicket-keeper batter Richa Ghosh, who scored 66 and 64 runs respectively.

However, India didn’t get a great start as they were 3 wickets down on the score of 52 runs in first 6 overs of the powerplay thanks to Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who not only handled the pressure but also formed a crucial partnership for the 4th and 5th wicket with Rodrigues and Richa Ghosh, which took the team to a total of 201 runs.

Later, the Indian bowlers did their job magnificently and stopped the UAE team on the score of just 123 runs, winning the match by a margin of 78 runs.

India Women vs Nepal Women

After 2 back-to-back wins, the Indian team were against the Nepal Women's cricket team to qualify for the semi-final stage of the tournament. After winning the toss, India Women's team decided to bat first at Dambulla Stadium and scored 178 runs in 20 overs with the help of their openers, who set the stage by making a partnership of 122 runs in 13 overs.

The destructive opener, Shefali Verma again played a blazing knock of 81 runs in 48 balls by hitting 12 boundaries and 1 maximum. 

In the second innings, Indian bowlers showed their skills and stopped their neighbours on the score of 99 runs in 20 overs, winning the match by 82 runs. Deepti Sharma continued his brilliant form by picking 3 crucial wickets. Shefali Verma was awarded the Player of the Match Award for her impressive performance.

With this win, Indian Women have marked their place in the semi-final by winning 3 back-to-back games, having 6 points on the table in 3 matches.