In the Women’s Asia Cup match that was postponed due to rain on Monday at the Sylhet Outer Cricket Stadium, Sabbhineni Meghana scored her first T20I fifty and shared a 116-run opening stand with Shafali Verma, the highest partnership in the competition to date. This foundational performance helped India defeat Malaysia by 30 runs using the DLS method.
India’s victory on Monday was also their second straight triumph in the tournament’s league stage, putting them on a par with Pakistan in terms of points. India, though, sits behind Pakistan on the points standings because of their higher net run rate.
In place of Smriti Mandhana, who was one of the four players rested for the match against Malaysia along with Sneh Rana, Pooja Vastrakar, and Renuka Thakur, Meghana opened the batting with Shafali. She scored 69 runs off 53 balls, hitting 11 clean fours and a six at a strike rate of 130.18 after India was put into bat first.
Meghana was at her free-flowing best to get her fifty in her 13th T20I match for India while Shafali struggled and tried to find some rhythm. Meghana used her wrists well to strike eye-catching punches, drives, and slog-sweeps with exquisite ease before being dismissed in the 14th over.
Before being clean bowled in the 19th over, Shafali had scored 46 off 39 balls, slamming three sixes and a four. This innings was a step in the right direction for her confidence and her search for form.
Dayalan Hemalatha smashed a four and a six on the final two balls of the innings, and Richa Ghosh made a quickfire 33 not out off 19 balls despite Kiran Navgire going down for a golden duck as India scored a whopping 181/4. To give other batters a chance to bat, the captain Harmanpreet Kaur, Jemimah Rodrigues, and Deepti Sharma are not batting in their normal places.
In response, Malaysia lost their openers, skipper Winifred Duraisingam and Wan Julia, to Deepti Sharma and Rajeshwari Gayakwad, respectively, inside the first 19 balls of their chase, before rain stopped play at 5.2 overs.
India won by 30 runs, courtesy to Meghana’s quick start during the power play, and it was enough to qualify as a game and put the DLS system to use. When the game was interrupted due to rain, Malaysia was well behind with a DLS par score of 46 at that time. Tuesday’s game between India and UAE will take place at the same location.
Brief Scores: India 181/4 in 20 overs (Sabbhineni Meghana 69, Shafali Verma 46; Nur Dania Syuhada 2/9, Winifred Duraisingam 2/36) beat Malaysia 16/2 in 5.2 overs (Rajeshwari Gayakwad 1/6, Deepti Sharma 1/10) by 30 runs via DLS method.
