A final settled at the interval
India posted 216 for three at the Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin earlier today, the highest total any women’s team has made in Asian Games cricket, and Sri Lanka were never within range of it. The chase lasted 15.4 overs and produced 69 runs. The winning margin of 147 is the largest India have managed by runs in a women’s T20 international, beating the 144 they put on Malaysia in 2018.
Harmanpreet Kaur chose to bat, which in a 20-over final on a true surface was the obvious call and turned out to be the whole match. Sri Lanka needed early wickets. They did not take one until the score had passed 99.
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Mandhana’s 79 and a career landmark
Smriti Mandhana made 79 from 45 balls with five fours and seven sixes, and somewhere inside that innings she became the first woman to reach 11,000 international runs. Shafali Verma gave her the platform at the other end, hitting 48 from 29 before falling with the opening stand on 99.
Richa Ghosh then did the damage that turns a good total into an unreachable one, 49 not out from 22 balls with six fours and three sixes. Harmanpreet contributed 19 from 17, and Bharti Fulmali finished unbeaten on seven. India scored at better than ten an over from the first ball to the last.
Spin took care of the rest
Shafali followed her innings with two wickets for three runs, Deepti Sharma returned three for six, and Shreyanka Patil picked up two more. Chamari Athapaththu made 29 from 21 and was the only Sri Lankan to look settled. Once she went, the innings folded inside four overs.
The result gives India back-to-back Asian Games titles, after they beat the same opponents in the Hangzhou final in 2023 on their first appearance in the event. It is also India’s first gold of Aichi-Nagoya, taking their tally to seven medals, with four silvers and two bronzes already banked before Tuesday. Pakistan took the bronze, beating Bangladesh by 31 runs.
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