In a must-win situation and a knock-out type of a match between India and Barbados. India routed Barbados in the ongoing Common Wealth Games and reached the Semi-Finals. Batting first, India did not start well and in-form batter and vice-Captain Smiti Mandhana was caught LBW in the second over of the match. She this time only managed to score 5 runs from 7 balls.
Jemimah came in and started playing good aggressive cricket along with Shefali Verma, who was more on the attack as she always is. Both of them scored 52 run partnership in just 34 balls. They were going great guns and were scoring at a fast rate, but then there was a mixup between the two and Shefali Verma was run out when she was at 43 (26).
Hermanpreet Kaur, the captain of the Indian Women’s Cricket team did not trouble the scorers and was out for a golden duck. It seemed at that moment that India was in a spot of bother as Taniya Bhatia could only score 6 runs and India was 92/4 after 13 overs.
But then Dipti Sharma and Jemimah started the on slot and Dipti hit one of the biggest six of the tournament and she herself was surprised. Jemimah went on to score her half-century. She hit a boundary on the last ball of the innings and the score was 162/4 in the allotted 20 overs.
India gave the target of 163 runs to Barbados.
From Barbado’s side, Selma was impressive as she gave only 20 runs in her 4 overs and took one price wicket of Indian Captain, Harmanpreet Kaur.
Renuka Thakur was again very impressive as she was against Australia and she clean bowled the dangerous Deandra Dottin for no score. Renuka started taking wickets from her very first over.
In the third over of the match, Barbados captain Hayley Mathews tried to hit Renuka over mid-on but failed to do so and ended up giving a simple catch to Shefali Verma who made no mistake and Barbados lost the second wicket. Barbados lost 2 wickets in just 10 runs in the 3rd over of their innings.
Renuka again struck and clean bowled Kycia Knight when she tried to play a chickie shot down the ground and only managed to drive the ball to her stumps.
Renuka did not stop there and again uprooted the stumps of Alleyne. Alleyne misjudged the in-swinging delivery from Renuka and Alleyne left the ball to hit her stump. Alleyne was not able to open her account.
Barbados lost 4 crucial wickets at the score of just 19 runs in 5 overs and this damage was done by none other than Renuka Thakur claiming all 4 wickets in just 3 overs.
Harmanpreet Kaur took a brilliant catch diving forward to get rid of Trishan Holder.
India tried as many as 8 bowlers to get the bowling practice in this match. She herself bowled a couple of overs and took 1 wicket.
Barbados could not recover and kept on losing wickets and were hardly able to score any runs. They managed to score only 62 runs at the loss of 8 wickets and lost the match and went out of the race of reaching the semi-finals.
Barbados was barely in this game and it seemed a one-sided match. India has reached the semifinals of the Common Wealth Games and is a strong contender for a medal in Women’s T20 Cricket.