Indian women's team, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, have won the gold medal as they beat Sri Lanka by 19 runs in the final of Asian Games 2023 at Hangzhou. Despite managing only 116 on the board, India put on a clinical performance to defend it and romped home comfortably in the end.
The Women in Blue laid their hands on the biggest prize in the Asian Games after heartbreaking defeats last year in the Commonwealth Games and the 2022 T20 World Cup semi-final loss to Australia. By doing so, India has become only the 2nd team after Pakistan to win gold in cricket the Asian Games. It's worth noting that Pakistan have won the gold twice in 2010 and 2014.
Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues shine with the bat:
After electing to bat first on a tricky surface, Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues stood out with 46 and 42 runs, respectively. The remaining five batters fell for single-figure scores, while Deepti Sharma stayed unbeaten at 1 as India scraped through to 116 on the board.
In response, Titas Sadhu wrecked Sri Lanka's batting line-up by sending the top three back to the pavilion cheaply. Hasini Perera and Nilakshi de Silva shared a 36-run stand before India assumed control again by dismissing the former. The boundaries were extremely hard to come by for the Island nation as they struck only one in the last 5 overs to end their innings at 97-8 in 20 overs.
Sadhu finished with stunning figures of 4-1-6-3 as the Indian players proudly wore gold medals around their necks. It is also the second gold for India after the shooting trio had clinched earlier in the day.
