India boosted their Women's T20 World Cup semi-final hopes with an 82-run win over Sri Lanka, driven by half-centuries from Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana.
When you play good cricket you always feel well, today all the boxes were ticked, we have ben talking about our fielding and we took all our catches and that's something very important to us. We did discuss before the game, if we are batting first what are the targets you need to set. These pitches are reall tricky, we can't go and execute. Today lot of things went according to plan. We were thinking at least 160 and we set 170-plus. We are at that stage where we have to think about winning and even about NRR. We have to play good cricket first of all, our bowlers are doing well, they are a good side and good to see our bowlers giving us wickets, they are in rhythm. As a captain you feel good when the team does well, it is a day to enjoy our success.
We struggled even in the bowling, we dropped a few catches. Batters did not do their job, especially myself. Top-order got out early and it is tough to chase this. We have to go back to the white board and work on things. The first game is really important for this kind of tourament, it is a low-scoring game and as a batting unit we had to chase that target. The players were down after that first game and I try to lift them, it happens in cricket and we have one game left, we have to play our best cricket against New Zealand. Very happy with my bowling unit, how they bowled in the last two games, not today.
We just wanted to go with the momentum. Smriti and Shafali gave us a very good start. We discussed that, we didn’t want to throw our wickets away. That’s exactly what the openers did and gave us that platform. Jemi and I just wanted to get 7-8 runs an over, and we just went with the flow. It was one of those days where I was in my zone, I was thinking positively and hitting anything that was in my zone. These wickets aren’t very true for batting. You have to keep rotating strike and only when the ball is in the zone can you swing your bat. We were there today for the team, we trusted ourselves and were rotating strike, and that’s what worked for us.
In Group A of the Women's T20 World Cup, Australia lead the table with a perfect record of two wins from two matches, boasting a strong net run rate of +2.524. India follow closely with two wins and one loss from three matches, also accumulating four points with a net run rate of +0.576, thanks to this massive 82-run win over Lankans. Pakistan sit in third place with one win and one loss, having played two matches and earning two points with a net run rate of +0.555. New Zealand are in fourth position with one win and one loss from two games, holding two points but a negative net run rate of -0.050. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka are at the bottom of the table, having lost all three of their matches and failing to secure any points, resulting in a net run rate of -2.564. They are now out of the tournament!