India 83 (Mandhana 55*, Shafali 26*) bits for 0 Bangladesh 80-8 with 10 wickets (Renuka 3-10, Radha 3-14, Deepthi 1-14)
Renuka pokes Bangladesh with power play
Renuka’s form had taken a downturn ahead of the Women’s Asia Cup. She was ruled out of two of the three T20Is against South Africa after posting remarkable figures of 4-0-42-0 in her only appearance in the series. Her early reputation as a powerplay swing queen seemed to be fading, especially on flat decks.
With young Arundhati Reddy challenging for her place – India are likely to field just one other seamer in the first-team alongside Pooja Bhastrakar – Renuka needed a big tournament here. On Friday, she lived up to that expectation. Renuka’s powerplay salvo left Bangladesh helpless, taking three wickets in three overs to shatter Bangladesh’s all-out attack plan.
Dilara Akter powered Renuka to score a six off the third ball, but was holed out on deep square off the fourth. Ishma Tanjim slogged out and got a leading edge to Tanuja Kanwar at short third, while Murshida Khatun mistimed her throw to midwicket two balls after Deepti Sharma relieved her at slip.
Bangladesh were down 21-3 in five overs.
Nigar resists and Radha succeeds
From the 6th to the 9th over, Bangladesh managed a lone boundary by Nigar Sultana and scored 19 runs. They were looking for a release that they could not get as the Indian bowlers kept coming at them.
Radha, who came in in the 10th over, delivered her first delivery as Bangladesh’s second most experienced batsman, Rumana Ahmed, suffered a huge setback when she bowled a straight ball.
Still, Bangladesh continued to attack. Raveya Khan’s attempt to flat-bowl Pooja Bhastrakar resulted in an error that was brilliantly handled by Shafali Verma at mid-on in the 11th over.
This forced Nigar to scrap all his counter-attacking plans and the focus quickly shifted to survival mode against the highly skilled trio of Deepti, Tanuja Kanwar and Radha Yadav. They were very different from each other: Deepti silenced them with her flying balls, Kanwar swung the ball around and Radha harassed them with her non-spin balls.
They somehow managed to take the lead when Nigar and Shorna Akhter joined in the 14th over. They scored 27 runs in the 17th to 19th overs. Then Radha recorded her first double wicket in the 20th over, finishing with 3 for 14 against Nigar and Nahida Akhter.
Mandana-Shapali Party
Mandana challenged the fielder and cleared it at will, Shafali swept the seamer Marupa Akter in front of square and the boundary flowed. Mandana served her trademark drive to a small crowd, Shafali shoveled the bowler and flat-batted him.
Bangladesh missed two chances on the pitch. The first was in the fifth over when Mandhana came down slowly and was run out, and then Nahida threw a stray ball when there was no one to back up the bowler. In the ninth over, Nahida relieved Shafali by catching a sitter at long-off. And between the two, Mandhana also relieved a no-ball.
Mandhana continued his run, hitting three fours in succession to reach his fifty and seal the win from the powerplay of Bangladesh’s innings.
Shashank Kishore is the Senior Sub-Editor at ESPNcricinfo.
