India Women finally opened their account with the gold in the Asian Games. They got gold for the first time after defeating Sri Lanka by 19 runs. SL settled with the silver.
IND scored 116/7 in 20 overs and in reply Lankans only posted 97/8 in 20 overs.
India reached the final after defeating Bangladesh in the Semi final by 8 wickets whereas Sri Lanka reached the Semi final by defeating Pakistan by 6 wickets.
Bangladesh already claimed the bronze medal after defeating Pakistan by 5 wickets.
Harmanpreet Kaur returned to the Indian side after finishing her punishment and again took the charge of leading the team. She won the toss and opted to bat first.
Smriti Mandhana (46 runs) who was appointed captain in absence of Harmanpreet guided the team very well. She hit 4 fours and a six. She along with Jemimah Rodrigues (42 runs) put 73 runs for the 2nd wicket. Rodrigues hit 5 boundaries in her innings.
Indian skipper Kaur (2 runs) unable to make her comeback sounded. After the departure of Mandhana and Jemimah the team wasn’t able to score much and finally they posted 116 runs in 20 overs by losing 7 wickets.
Lankan bowlers did a fabulous job by stopping the batters as at one time they were looking for a good score. Sugandika Kumari, Udeshika Prabodhani and Inoka Ranaweera got 2 wickets each.
Target was not that much but unfortunately Lankan batters didn’t get there. Hasini Perera (25 runs) was the highest scorer from the side. They were unable to make a huge partnership which ultimately cost them the match. The highest partnership for them was 36 runs for the 4th wicket.
Nilakshi de Silva (23 runs) and Oshadi Ranasinghe (19 runs) tried to reach the final stone but they batted too slow which got away from them. In 20 overs they only managed 97 runs by losing 8 wickets.
Indian bowlers did an absolute good by restricting them to a below par score. Especially Titas Sadhu who grabbed 3 valuable wickets in her 4 overs and gave only 6 runs and also took a maiden over. Rajeshwari Gayakwad took 2 wickets. DeeptiSharma, Pooja Vastrakar and Devika Vaidya got 1 wicket each.