Indian-W defeats Pakistan-W despite some early problems

The girls have taken a perfect revenge for the boys as they defeated the Pakistan team by 107 runs in their first match of the World Series. It was not all perfect for the team as they faced some huge problems up front. Smriti Mandana and Deepti Sharma set the platform but the middle order failed massively. Mandana scored 52 while Deepti scored 40 but the middle order failed massively.

Captain Mithali Raj, who looked in great touch against New Zealand, was very poor against Pakistan. Captain scored just 9 runs from 36 balls while Harmanpreet scored 5 and Richa Ghosh scored 1. When the team looked in great trouble, Sneh Rana and Pooja Vastrakar came to rescue. The duo played some amazing shots and helped India reach a good total. Rana scored 53 from 48 balls while Vastrakar scored 67 from 59 balls. The duo added 126 crucial runs and India gave a target of 245 runs which was impossible for the Pakistan player’s right from the start.

 If we consider Mithali Raj’s performance to be bad, then the entire Pakistan team played like her in this match. Jhulan Goswami, Rajeswari Gayakwad manhandled them from the very start as the team lost 6 wickets within 30 overs with just 87 on board. It was an impossible task for the Pakistan team as they finished their innings with 137 on board. Rajeswari picked 4 while Jhulan Goswami and Sneh Rana picked 2 each.

The team will next challenge New Zealand on 10th of March. They lost the series against them recently but defeated them in the very last match of the series. The team should be optimistic after a brilliant performance against Pakistan. With this win, the team now has 11 straight victories against Pakistan in the World Series’.

Vastrakar was adjudged as the Man of the Match because of his superb performance. In the post match conference she said, " I'm very happy, my first player of the match award, in my first WC game. The plan was to somehow try and get to 200. I like to bat in pressure situations, even in domestics, I told the same to Sneh (Rana), to keep the partnership going. The batters told us that the wicket was slow, so the target was 200, but we didn't bat differently".

Captain Mithali in the post match press conferecne said, "I am happy we won the first game but a lot of things to work on. When you lose wickets in the middle order, it does put a lot of pressure. The top-order has to score runs in a big tournament like this. When you have all-rounders like Sneh, Deepti and Pooja, we extend our batting line up".