The Indian women’s cricket team maintained their impressive performance throughout the five-match T20I series against Sri Lanka with a convincing eight-wicket win in the third match of the T20I series at Greenfield International Stadium, Thiruvananthapuram, on Friday, thus securing an unassailable lead of 3-0. The match was led by impeccable performance by their bowlers Renuka Singh Thakur and Deepti Sharma, which was followed by a fireworks display by their skipper Shafali Verma, making it impossible for Sri Lanka to make a come-back.
Electing to bowl first for the third match in a row, Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur left it upon her pace attack to extract late bowling moments. The decision gave Harmanpreet plenty of reasons to smile as Renuka Singh, who last featured in a T20 International towards the end of last year, made a blistering comeback with one of her personal best performances in an Indian jersey and shook the Sri Lankan top and middle order with her pace and precision, taking 4 wickets for 21 runs and making India start on the dominantly positive footing right from the start.
But Renuka’s burst of fire ensured that Sri Lanka was never allowed to get momentum. She removed the main batters, including Hasini Perera and Imesha Dulani, which prevented Sri Lanka from having a respectable score from the very start. Sri Lanka, which had problems forming partnerships all throughout the series, was limited to a score of 112/7 in their 20 overs, but it was never a challenging score on the batting pitch, which was providing ample aid to the India bowlers.
While Renuka was polishing off the opposition with her new ball aggression, Deepti Sharma supported her beautifully with her disciplined performance in the middle overs. Back after having missed a match in the earlier leg of the series due to a fever, Deepti started exactly where she had stopped and picked three crucial wickets. She got the scalps of Chamari Athapaththu, Kavisha Dilhari, and Malsha Shehani to return with fabulous numbers of 3/18. This took her total international T20 wicket-taking collections equal to the world records of 151 international wickets in women’s international T20s, thus making her the joint-highest wicket-taker in the format’s history.
Riding on the back of two excellent bowling performances that restricted Sri Lanka to a lower-than-par total, the Indian chase was led by one of the largest batting exploits by one of the young star players in recent years. Shafali Verma – known for her aggressive style of play at the top of her team’s order – unleashed a jaw-dropping onslaught from the very first ball she faced in the game.
Shafali’s knock was an exquisite mix of timing and aggressiveness. She remained unbeaten on 79 runs in just 42 balls, smacking an impressive 11 fours and three maximums. Her planned dominance over the fast and spin balls ensured that India completed the chase in only 13.2 overs, with 40 balls to spare. While doing so, she took Sri Lanka’s premier bowlers to task, allowing no chance for the opposition to get back in the game.
The current series has also seen Shafali celebrate her second consecutive fifty after coming out to bat, and this has cemented her position as one of the most feared opening batters available in T20 cricket today. Her aggressive style of playing cricket has been taking a toll on the middle-order batters of other teams, as India has been getting fantastic starts throughout this series.
The win was comprehensive in nature, and this was because of the well-balanced side that the Indian team has. It was not only the bowling lineup, which was always on the top of their game, applying pressure on the opponent, but also the batting lineup, which was so powerful that they could easily get down the totals. This win was expected, as according to Harmanpreet Kaur, this was also the plan they have, and they will be going to upcoming tournaments like the T20 World Cup.
The Sri Lankan batsmen struggled to capitalize on their starts, but a couple of them showed some resistance. However, that was not sufficient in front of the disciplined Indian bowling attack that was quick to pounce on every mistake committed by the Sri Lankan batsmen. The Indian bowling lineup ensured that Sri Lanka was never given another chance in the match, and the batsmen took care of the formalities. Although the series has already been confirmed, for which there are two more matches left, India can look ahead confidently knowing that they have one of their most balanced and potent squads they have mustered in a long time. The displays from Renuka, Deepti, and Shafali have also made a telling impact as far as warning rivals are concerned.
