The Indian women’s team lost the 2nd semi-finals to England by 8 wickets played at Sir Vivan Richards Stadium, Antigua just finished a few moments ago. Apart from Smriti Mandhana, Rodrigues, none of the Indian batters could score runs and posted a below-par total. In reply, England chased down the target with ease.
Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and decided to bat first. Smriti Mandhana got the team off to decent start with some attacking stroke play. Before the power play over ended, Smriti Mandhana was dismissed by Ecclestone for 34 off 23 balls. At the end of 6 overs, India scored 43 for 1.
After the power play overs, the Indian batters could not score runs at ease and lost wickets at regular intervals. Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues added 36 runs for the 3rd wicket. The Indian team lost their last 8 wickets for just 23 runs. India was bowled out for 112 in 19.3 overs. For India, Smriti Mandhana was top scorer with 34, Rodrigues made 26, Kaur 16. Captain Heather Knight took 3 for 9 in 2 overs, Gordon 2 for 20 and Ecclestone 2 for 22.
Chasing the target of 113 runs to win, Radha Yadav struck to dismiss Tammy Beaumont for just 1 run. Wyatt and Jones added 20 runs for the 2nd wicket before Deepti Sharma struck to dismiss Wyatt for 8 runs. At the end of 6 overs, England scored 30 for 2.
Jones and Sciver played the Indian spinners well-taking singles, hitting bad balls away for boundaries. Both of them took the game away from India and finished the game for England. Sciver reached her half-century off 37 balls while Jones finished the match reaching her half-century off 47 balls. Sciver and Jones added 92 runs unbeaten runs.
England 116 for 2 in 17.1 overs ( Jones 53*, Sciver 52*, Radha Yadav 1/20, Deepti Sharma 1/24) beat
India 112 in 19.3 overs ( Smriti Mandhana 34, Rodrigues 26, Heather Knight 3/9, Gordon 2/20) by 8 wickets.
Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur said: I am proud of the way girls played in the entire tournament. This is a learning experience for our team. England bowled really well and did the job according to a wicket. It was not an easy total to chase down and took the game to 18th over.
England captain Heather Knight said: It was a great bowling effort by our bowlers. The Indian team started on a positive note in powerplay overs. The pitches have been tricky. Our spinners really bowled well and created pressure on Indian batters.
Player of the match Jones: Great win and Nat came in and took the pressure immediately off from me. We wanted to be at the end, help the team win the match. We were thinking about, planning how to play top quality spinners.
