New Delhi: Indian women’s cricket team won by 5 wickets against the Sri Lankan side in the second T20I of the series. With this win, India will take home the series win as it is 2-0 up in the 3-match series. It was another low-scoring yet gripping game.
Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first. The opening pair of Vishmi Gunaratne and Chamari Athapaththu gave their team a good start. They were hitting at a convincing rate of above 6 runs an over and India was facing trouble in getting a breakthrough. Another interesting thing that happened was that in the first four overs all the runs scored for Sri Lanka came either from Gunaratne’s bat or were extras, Athapaththu got to face just 3 balls and scored on none. Athapaththu was also dropped off Pooja Vastrakar’s delivery in the 10th over. But, it was Vastrakar who broke the 87 runs partnership by dismissing Athapaththu at 43(41).
Harmanpreet Kaur caught and bowled to dismiss Gunaratne for 45(50) in the 17th over. After that what followed was a batting collapse where no batter was able to reach the double-digit mark. The 18th and 19th over saw two wickets each. The Sri Lankan innings ended on 125/7, which was way lower than what they would have expected.
Indian openers gave a fierce start to the inning and India was 52/2 after the 6 overs of powerplay. Shafali Verma and Sabbhineni Meghana got out in the powerplay after scoring 17(10) each. Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur were doing well but Mandhana got out for 39(34) in the 11th over. Soon Jemimah Rodrigues also followed with a score of 3. It was captain Harmanpreet who anchored the chase and led India to victory in the final over. She was named the ‘Player of the Match’ for her all-round performance of 31*(32) and 1/12. Harmanpreet also surpassed Mithali Raj to become the top scorer for India in T20Is.
The final T20 of the series will be played on June 27. India will be looking for a clean sweep and Sri Lanka will be hoping to defeat India for the first time at home.
