Team India registered a rather comfortable victory in the first T20I of the five-match series against Bangladesh in Sylhet on Sunday, April 28 as the bowlers starred with a fine performance. Renuka Singh Thakur led the response with the ball for the Women in Blue with a couple of wickets in the powerplay before the likes of Deepti Sharma and Pooja Vastrakar got into action as the Indian team ended up on the winning side by a sizeable margin of 44 runs.
Apart from skipper Nigar Sultana, who smashed a half-century, none of the batters offered much resistance for Bangladesh and losing regular wickets didn't help even though the target wasn't a big one. All five bowlers got their name in the wickets column with Renuka getting three of them and Vastrakar ending up with a brace.
The spin trio of Deepti, Radha Yadav and Shreyanka Patil got a wicket each as India restricted Bangladesh to just 101 to take a 1-0 lead in the series.
Earlier, contributions from all through the batting order helped the Indian team get to a competitive score of 145 on that slow surface at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium. Vice-captain Smriti Mandhana got out cheaply but Shafali Verma and Yastika Bhatia with a 43-run stand took the innings forward for the visitors.
Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur came out with intent and played a few shots to get going before Richa Ghosh with a cameo helped India cross the 140 mark. India would feel that they left a few runs out there as no batter stayed long enough to keep the bowling attack under pressure. 145 wasn't a huge score but eventually proved to be too much for the home side.
The two teams will be in action yet again on Tuesday for the second game of the series and the Indian batters will be keen to get things right on April 30.
