In the Asian Games semifinal held on Sunday, Shafali Verma’s impressive century, coupled with strong bowling performances from Nandni Sharma, Deepti Sharma, and Sree Charani, led the Indian women’s cricket team to a decisive victory over Bangladesh. This win secures India’s place in the upcoming gold-medal match against Sri Lanka.
Shafali smashed her maiden white-ball century and became the first female cricketer to hit a ton in the Asian Games as her unbeaten 100 helped the Women in Blue rack up a strong score of 195/4. 1 T20I bowler Charani scalped two, bowling Bangladesh for 81 runs and registering a strong 114-run win. India are the defending gold medallists of the continental showpiece, having won the yellow metal in the 2023 Hangzhou Games. Mandhana scored 37 from 19 balls as the duo put up 72 for the opening wicket in the powerplay before the Southpaw sliced one to deep mid-wicket to fall on the last ball of the powerplay. She surpassed Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu in the record list and now has 35 maximums in 2026. Coming into the game, the Indian opener had hit 26 sixes and was six behind Athapaththu’s 32 maximums of 2024. Charani got Sharmim Akhter stumped in the 14th over, and it was only a matter of time before India bowled the opposition out when Deepti landed the final two blows with the wickets of Marufa Akter and Shanjida Akter Meghla in the 15th over to power India to an 114-run win.
The bowlers backed that stellar effort as Nandni and Deepti starred with three wickets each, while No. Harmanpreet Kaur’s Indian side will now meet Chamari Athapaththu’s Sri Lankan team in the gold-medal final, a repeat of the previous edition of the Asian Games final and the recently concluded Women’s Asia Cup final. Shafali and Smriti provided the Women in Blue with yet another strong start after India opted to bat first. Shafali’s nine sixes also set the record for the most by a woman cricketer in T20Is in a calendar year. The star Indian batter surpassed the Sri Lankan skipper with her stellar knock.
The Women in Blue will now compete against Sri Lanka in the final on Tuesday, with Bangladesh facing Pakistan in the bronze-medal match on the same day.
