India Women dismiss Nepal for the lowest total in Women's T20I

The India Women team had the better of Nepal in the ACC Women’s T20 Asia Cup as they defeated the neighbors by a huge margin of 99 runs in the last league game. Having already qualified for the final the team rested the key names and gave an opportunity to the ones on the bench to have a go in the middle. Batting first the Indian team set a target of 121 runs and in response when Nepal walked out to chase it; they were wrapped up for just 21 runs.

That also earned the Indians the record of bowling out the opposition for the lowest total in Women’s Twenty20 internationals. It was the faster bowlers who started things off getting the first four wickets, the slower bowlers then got into the act and helped the team create history.

Indian team ended the group stages without a single blink and went into the game without some of the bigger names from the squad in, Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Sushma Verma and Smriti Mandhana. It was the Pakistan team that previously held the record having bowled out Bangladesh for 44 in the same tournament on November 30.

It was the Nepali skipper that won the toss but decided to ask India to bat first. Indian openers Meghana and VR Vanitha didn’t have the best of the starts as the former was bowled by Rubina Chhetry while they had just added 20 runs after walking out to bat. Rubina soon removed the other opener Vanitha as well.

It was the duo of Patil and Nuzhat Parween that gave them some stability and scored 32 runs for the third wicket. The middle-order along with the wicketkeeper couldn’t do much and it was up for the lower-order to get them to something substantial. At a difficult time Pandey and Harmanpreet scored unbeaten 39 and 14 respectively. It was their 51* partnership that took the team to 120 in 20 overs.

Defending the score seamer Shikha Pandey drew first blood as she got the wicket of Sita Magar; Mansi Joshi in her next over got rid of Nepal’s Joyti Pandey and they were two down with just nine runs on the board. S Meghana in the very next over scalped Roshni Bohara with just one run added to the scoreboard.

Nepal had just managed to pull up 10 runs on the board and that is when Meghana clean bowled Neera Raljopadhyay and Ekta Bisht in the next shattered Nary Thapa’s timber. The other half of the batting unit managed 11 runs before spinners – Poonam Yadav and Anuja Patil folded them up to take the team to the historic victory.