India women crush Bangladesh to start ICC World Twenty20 on a high

Indian women’s cricket team beat Bangladesh by 72 runs in the opening match of World Twenty20 here on Tuesday.

Winning the toss, Bangladesh chose to field and conceded 163 runs to India claiming five wickets and in reply managed to hit only 91 runs for the loss of five wickets.

Opening the innings for India, captain Mithali Raj hit 42 runs off 35 balls while her opening partner Vellaswamy Vanitha hit a 24-ball 38-run knock.

India lost their first wicket at 62 after Sharmin Akhter bowled Vanitha for 38 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Surviving a caught-and-bowled attempt by Khadija Tul Kubra in the eleventh over, Raj later drove a boundary through the cover.

Harmanpreet Kaur blasted two sixes in her quickfire 40 run-knock in 29 balls.

Veda Krishnamurthy and Jhulan Goswami remained unbeaten at 36 and three. Krishnamurthy also hit a couple of sixes off Fahima Khatun in the 19th over.

Chasing a target of 164, Bangladesh lost two wickets by the fifth over for just 19 runs with a slow run rate.

A great piece of fielding by Anuja Patil got rid of Akhter through a run out and by the 16th over, Bangladesh could only manage 64 runs for the loss of four wickets.

In the entire Bangladesh innings, no player could score more than 30 runs with Nigar Sultana being unbeaten at 27, remained the top scorer.

Interestingly, in the match, only four extras were conceded. Bangladesh conceded three extras while India only one.

India’s Harmanpreet was adjudged the player of the match.

Brief Scores: India 163/5 in 20 overs (Mithali Raj 42, Harmanpreet Kaur 40; Fahima Khatun 2/31, Rumana Ahmed 2/35) won against Bangladesh 91/5 in 20 overs (Nigar Sultana 27, Sharmin Akhter 21; Anuja Patil 2/16, Poonam Yadav 2/17).