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New Delhi: The Commonwealth Games cricket semi-final between India and England wasn’t supposed to go this way. The Edgbaston stands had way more English fans on Saturday as their side looked to notch up another win over India after the visitors’ meltdown in the league stage and then head for the final. The home side wasn’t quite envisaging being in the third-place match when they began in the morning. But, as it turned out, they were left anguished and defeated, by four runs, as their own fallacies came back to haunt them, as they had their rivals not so many days ago.
The Indian women didn’t let of the fight, even as the English batters’ initial assault on them as they chased a challenging 164 runs. But after the initial wicket of Sophie Dunkley, once Alice Capsey committed suicide by going for a single on the turn without realising that wicketkeeper Taniya Bhatia already had the ball, it was all downhill for the hosts as they just didn’t get back up to the asking rate at any stage.
While the eventual winning margin of four runs was way closer than it should have been – England needed 27 runs of the last 12 balls – it was nevertheless a win that India worked for, hard. Smriti Mandhana once more showed why she is rated so high in the IC rankings. Her assault on the English bowling in the initial stages of the Indian inning was something to behold, though Shafali Verma struggled, as she has been doing off late. Nevertheless, Mandhana was practically unstoppable.
But once she departed, a little bit of a struggle ensued for the Indian batters as skipper Harmanpreet Kaur wasn’t quite up to the mark as the would like to be and 20 off 20 balls wasn’t quite the stuff she wanted.
But Jemimah Rodrigues’ promotion on one-drop has been a success and the diminutive batter didn’t disappoint this time either, coming up with a fine 44 not out. While she isn’t strong enough to crack the cricket ball over the ropes, she nevertheless did find the gaps as and when she could.
A word about the bowling. India were good in the field, as was evident from the three run-outs in the English inning, but the bowling, both medium-pace and spin, did leave some questions. Renuka Singh and Meghna Singh were both hit around by the English batters and the spinners, while largely keeping a lid on rapid scoring, did however give some unnecessary width which resulted in runs that could otherwise possibly have been restricted with a straighter line. Which also might have created wickets.
But all said and done, the team was a happy lot. Beating England at home is never easy, so this one was twice as sweet, since now the ladies will play for gold.
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