The jinx has been broken. After coming up short in multiple semifinals and finals of multi-team events in the past six years, India’s senior team has, at long last, won a major title in women’s cricket: the Asian Games gold medal.
Defending a sub-par 116 in the final, India, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, who took back the captaincy reins from her deputy Smriti Mandhana in the gold-medal fixture after returning from her two-match suspension, defeated Chamari Athapaththu’s Sri Lanka by 19 runs in Hangzhou, China, on Monday afternoon to clinch the top spot on the podium.
In what was their maiden appearance in the Asiad, India scripted a perfect ending to their campaign, thanks to teen pacer Titas Sadhu’s three-for and knocks of 46 and 42, respectively, from Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues.
“We have been playing a lot of cricket over the last 3-4 years, so it’s a great experience, and, again, to win a gold for India especially,” Rodrigues, the leading run-scorer in the 19th Asian Games women's cricket tournament, averaging 109 for as many runs in three innings, told Hangzhou Asian Games’ social-media in a post-match interview.
So, how did India win the gold medal? Moneycontrol picks the turning points of the game.
U-19 World Cup winner Titas Sadhu’s star turn
There’s something about the 18-year-old that foretells a future of greatness. Sadhu's Player-of-the-Match-winning performance in the final of India’s victorious campaign at the inaugural Under-19 World Cup in South Africa January was a measure of that. Her match-winning three-for, completed inside the powerplay, was further testament to what she brings to the table as a tall, brawny pacer with the ability to swing her side’s fortune to glory even on a far-from-ideal cricket surface that the track at the Zhejiang University of Technology Cricket Field was.
Taking the new ball in the third over, Sadhu, 18, struck as early as her first ball, getting the Sri Lanka wicketkeeper Anushka Sanjeewani to loft one to Harmanpreet at mid-off. Two balls later, came the peach, reminiscent of her maiden international wicket on international debut in the semifinal against Bangladesh last week, that went through the defences of Vishmi Gunaratne and took the top of middle and off.
A double-wicket maiden in her opening over in the bag, Sadhu dealt Sri Lanka the body blow with the second ball of her second over. Left-hand opener Chamari Athpaththu, the captain of and premier batter by a mile in the opposition line-up, fended a tame catch to Deepti Sharma at extra cover, partly done in but the variable bounce of the surface.
Their batting lynchpin out for a run-a-ball 12, with just 14 on the board, Sri Lanka’s fate was effectively sealed by Sadhu’s opening burst, the young quick from Bengal’s Chinsurah town finishing with 3 for 6 from her full allocation of four overs. Though Hasini Perera and Nilakshi de Silva, Sri Lanka's Nos. 4 and 5, put up a fight with their 20-plus knocks, the lack of Athpathuthu's power, not least on a sluggish track, later in the chase proved pivotal in India pipping them to gold.
Rodrigues-Mandhana 50 stand save India the blushes
That Sadhu and the other four bowlers India deployed on the day had just about enough to defend was down to left-hand opener Mandhana and No. 3 Rodrigues' enterprise. On a pitch where the ball stopped, turned, and bounced prodigiously, bellowing puffs of dust that would put Interstellar’s iconic dust scene to shame, the duo exercised caution at the expense of more flattering strike-rates as they put together a vital 67-ball 73-run second-wicket stand.
Mandhana’s reliance on the sweep was justified on a track so unreliable, but her six off left-arm spinner Sugandika Kumari, charging down the track and swinging through the line, gave a glimpse of vintage Mandhana who had been yearning to contribute decisively in major-event knockouts for a long time. Much like her half-century in the Commonwealth Games semifinal in Birmingham last year, her 45-ball innings in the Asiad final proved as indispensable as Rodrigues’s, as no other batter could cross 20.
After Mandhana became experienced left-arm spinner Inoka Ranaweera’s bunny yet again in international cricket, fatally top-edging a slow one four shy of what would have been a well-deserved fifty, Rodrigues took charge of the proceedings even as wickets tumbled around her.
India’s collapse; Rodrigues’ match-saving split
Those full splits are something of a hallmark now. Rodrigues once made a meme of them on social-media, putting herself in the “elite company” of MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli, and on Monday, her athleticism was in full view as she stretched herself to the fullest to keep herself from being stumped at a crucial juncture.
India had lost their third wicket a ball ago: big-hitter Richa Ghosh, promoted to No. 4 in the hope of accelerating the run-scoring. Harmanpreet, who had sat out India’s two previous outings at the Asiad serving an ICC-imposed suspension and was playing her 100th T20I as captain, had just taken a single during her 5-ball 2-run innings to give back Rodrigues the strike. An excellent loopy delivery from Ranaweera, and an even more superlative go at the woodwork from Sanjeewani, almost had Rodrigues stumped on 36.
The full-split deployed, Rodrigues, however, survived, albeit only marginally. Though she went on to add only another six runs to her tally, India scored 11 since that scare during Rodrigues's stay in the middle, with each run worth its weight in gold. When gauged against the single-digit scores that all five batters coming in after her made, with India slumping from 89 from 1 to 116 for 7, suffice to say, the split proved a decisive element in India clinching the gold medal, the contingent's second on the day across all disciplines.
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