Bangladesh women pulled of a scintillating victory to seal the Women’s Asia Cup 2018 and win their maiden Asian cup title. Shamima Sultana’s team registered their second victory over India by 3 wickets in the tournament having beaten the women in blue in a group stage clash in the early part of the tournament by 7 wickets.
Earlier, Bangladesh women won the toss and choosed to bowl first. Indian innings never get going as they continued to loose early wickets in the form of Mithali Raj(11 off 18 balls), Smriti Mandhana (7 off 12 balls) and Deepti Sharma(4 off 11 balls). Anuja Patil(3 off 4 balls) was dismissed in a very uncertain fashion as she was adjudged out for obstructing the field.
Captain Harmanpreet Kaur(56 off 42 balls) held the innings together and built partnership with lower order batters to take India to a total of 112/9 at the end of 20 overs, which would never prove too big for Bangladesh who chased down the target of 142 against India in the group stage clash.
Bangladeshi spinners were way too impressive as Captain Salma Khatun and Jahana Alam took one wicket each. Khadija and Rumana took two wickets each.
Chasing an easy target of 113 runs, Bangladesh were off to a good start as they didn’t loose any wicket in first 6 overs. However, Poonam Yadav breaked a crucial 35 runs stand as she dismissed Ayasha Rahman(17 off 23 balls). She later scalped the wicket of other opener Shamima Sultana(16 off 19 balls).
Fargana and Nigar showed some intent but the Bangladeshi team kept loosing wickets at regular interval. However, an impressive innings by Rumana Ahmed(23 off 22 balls) brought the match right down to the wire.
Bangladesh needed 9 off 6 balls as skipper Harmanpreet Kaur came to bowl. Kaur conceded 6 runs in first 3 balls that brought the equation to 3 off 3 balls. The 4th and 5th ball fetched the wicket of Sanjida Islam(5 off 7 balls) and Rumana Ahmed(23 off 22 balls) respectively that brought the equation to 2 runs of 1 ball. At the last ball Jahanara Alam slugged away after a shimmy towards deep mid-wicket and a poor throw by the fielder meant that Alam completed 2 runs and pulled off a famous victory for Bangladesh by 3 wickets.
Poonam Yadav was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4/9, but that was not enough to restrict the Bangladeshi team.
Rumana Ahmed
Harmanpreet Kaur
