ICC Women’s World T20: Mithali Raj, spinners star in India’s 52-run win over Ireland

A clinical performance by the spinners helped the Indian women’s team register a 52-run victory over Ireland in the group match at the ICC Women’s World T20 on Thursday.

Courtesy this win, they easily progressed to the semi-finals of the marquee event.

Batting first, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side could only post 145/6 on a pitch that only slowed down as the game progressed. The Indian spinners then capitalised on this and spun a web around the Irish women, limiting them to just 93/8 at the end of their allotted 20 overs.

On a day that the Indian batswomen failed to make an impact, it was the bowling department that stepped up and took responsibility. Led by Radha Yadav (3/25), Deepti Sharma (2/15) and Poonam Yadav (1/14), the Indian bowlers never really let the batswomen from the Irish side settle down as they regularly chipped in with wickets. Skipper Kaur also picked up a wicket.

Also read: ICC Women’s World T20: India ride on Mithali Raj’s masterclass to beat Pakistan

The extent of domination asserted by the Indian women with the ball can be explained with the fact that a total of 65 dot balls were bowled, which makes it to half-innings without a run scored.
India’s batting effort mainly was characterised by a patient 51 from Mithali Raj who stitched a 67-run opening stand with Smriti Mandhana. Despite this, the innings never kicked off into something big and substantial mostly because of the track that was damp due to rains.

Raj’s slow innings can be broken down into two parts–her first 22 runs which came off five balls and her next 21, which took another 51 deliveries. The move to promote the young Jemimah Rodrigues at number three didn’t work well as Raj’s 56-ball knock made the others take on the bowling, which in turn led to their fall.

It was also a case of Raj hold fort at one end while she kept on having new batting partners at the other. She finally fell to a slower delivery in the 19th over as India’s chances of putting a challenging total on the board took a big hit.

Brief score: India 145 for 6 (Raj 51, Mandhana 33, Garth 2-22) beat Ireland 93 for 8 (Joyce 33, Shillington 23, Radha 3-25) by 52 runs

Image credit- The Week