Shafali Verma lived a charmed life for her stroke filled 64 off 40 balls as India marched into yet another Women’s Asia Cup final with a comfortable 40-run win over Bangladesh here on Thursday.
The Indian spin trio of Deepti Sharma (3/26), Shree Charani (1/14) and Prema Rawat (1/21) too delivered in spin friendly conditions. With seven titles (four in 50-over and three T20s), India are the most successful team in the tournament. India’s new number three Pratika Rawal (20 off 24) has been under pressure in the tournament but on Thursday she made a sizzling start, a copy book cover drive off Akter.
It has been a low scoring tournament mainly due to the slow nature of the pitches here. Like the last game, Pratika Rawal dropped a couple of catches. Considering that and Bangaldesh’s batting, India knew deep down they had got enough on the board. They will play with either Pakistan or Sri Lanka in the final scheduled for Sunday. They had a suffered a shocking loss to Sri Lanka in the previous edition. Later in her innings, she came out of the crease to hit a six before falling to the same bowler.
Earlier, the Bangladesh bowling attack, which has been impressive in the tournament, was able to keep the accomplished Indian batters quiet for majority of the innings.