India bounced back from their loss against Australia to hand Sri Lanka a thumping seven-wicket defeat in their second Super Six game in the ICC Women’s U-19 World Cup at Potchefstroom, South Africa on Sunday.
Head coach Nooshin-Al-Khadeer would have heaved a sigh of relief as a second loss would have brought India’s Cup campaign to an end. India need not have worried though after skipper Shafali Verma won the toss and elected to bowl.
The bowlers, spinners in particular, starred as they ran through the Sri Lankan batting order. With two losses in their previous games, Sri Lanka were under pressure coming to the game and India struck early before restricting them to 59/9 in 20 overs.
Leg-spinner Parshavi Chopra bowled exceptionally well to return figures of 4-0-15-4 while left-arm spinner Mannat Kashyap took two wickets. Apart from captain Vishmi Gunaratne (25), who has also made her debut for the Sri Lanka senior team, the batters could not put up much resistance.
Chasing the target of 60 runs, India had little trouble as they coasted to 60/3 in 7.2 overs.
Shafali was the first to be dismissed, for 15 off 10 balls, by off-spinner Dewmi Vihanga, who took all three wickets to fall. Promoted to No 3, Richa Ghosh joined Shweta Sehrawat, but Dewmi removed the wicketkeeper-batter for two runs. She struck again to dismiss Shweta for 13. Soumya Tiwari then helped complete the chase, remaining 28 not out off 15 balls.
Brief scores:
Sri Lanka 59/9 (Vishmi 25, Parshavi Chopra 4/15, Mannat Kashyap 2/16); India 60/3 in 7.2 overs (Soumya Tiwari 28*, Dewmi Vihanga 3/34)
