- Thursday, May 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
An all-round Indian side has finished at the top spot at the Women’s Asia Cup 2022 by thrashing Thailand by nine wickets in their match at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium on Monday (10).
The win also kept hosts and defending champions Bangladesh’s hopes of making the last-four stage alive. The women in green will take on a low-placed United Arab Emirates on Tuesday (11) and a win there will see them prevailing over Thailand to make the semis-finals, thanks to a superior net run rate.
Monday’s thumping win saw India finishing at the top of the points table with 10 points with five wins in six matches. The only game they lost was against arch-rivals Pakistan by 13 runs.
India won the toss and elected to bowl and bundled out the minnows, who shocked Pakistan in this tournament, for a paltry 37 runs in 15.1 overs and overhauled the target in just six overs with nine wickets in hand.
Indian spinner Sneh Rana was the pick of the bowlers with 3 wickets for 9 runs and was chosen as the player of the match. For Thailand, Nannapat Koncharoenkai top scored with 12. Deepti Sharma and Rajeshwari Gayakwad took two wickets each.
Chasing the modest target, India lost the wicket of Shafali Verma for eight but her partner Sabbhineni Meghana remained not out on 20 off 18 balls to take India home. India captain Smriti Mandhana, generally an opener, didn’t bat in this game.
Thailand’s off-break bowler Nattaya Boochatham took the wicket of Verma.
The rankings for the last four teams were yet to be decided since Pakistan and Sri Lanka, who will take on each other in the final league match on Tuesday, and with both teams on six points, a big win could take either of the two teams above India.
On the other hand, if the UAE defeat Bangladesh, Thailand will go through to the knock-outs.
Brief scores: India 40/1 in 6 overs (Sabbhineni Meghana 20*, Pooja Vastrakar 12*, Boochatham 1/15) beat Thailand 37 all out (Nannapat Koncharoenkai 12, Natthakan Chantham 6; Sneh Rana 3-9) by 9 wickets.
