Birmingham| Putting up a spectacular show and bringing their A-game to the table, India women have handed a crushing defeat to Barbados as they displayed a clinical performance. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led Indian side outplayed the Caribbean side and inflicted a loss of 100 runs. Barbados is now eliminated from the Commonwealth Games cricket championship and India is just waiting to see the opponents they will face in the all-important semi-final on Saturday. India along with Barbados was clubbed with Australia and Pakistan in group A. With Barbados and Pakistan eliminated, India and Australia have now qualified for the semi-finals of the Commonwealth Games cricket championship.
Barbados women had won the toss and they decided to field first as they wanted to give themselves a chance of chasing the total down. Team Barbados were spot on with their bowling changes and they managed to get Smriti Mandhana's wicket pretty early when she was batting on 5. Young Shafali Verma carried on the Indian innings as she struck a sublime 43 off 26 deliveries which helped India reach a decent total. Despite Shafali Verma's fireworks, it was Jemimah Rodrigues whose innings came as a sigh of relief for the Indian team. The Mumbai-based batter who had been completely out of touch for some time now scored 56 off 46 deliveries at a strike rate of 121.74. Jemimah's innings will give the Indian batting lineup a lot of relief before they head into the all-important semi-finals.
Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur couldn't contribute much as she couldn't get off the mark. Deepti Sharma walked in and helped Varma and Rodrigues with her exploits. Sharma scored a total of 34 off 28 deliveries which helped India finish with a decent total of 162 for Barbados to chase.
Unlike India, Barbados had an extremely shaky start with Deandra Dottin departing on zero and skipper Hayley Matthews scoring just 9 runs off 7 deliveries. India's in-form pacer Renuka Singh was the wrecker-in-chief as she picked up 4 wickets and conceded 10 runs in her full quota of 4 overs. MIseries for Barbados kept on piling and Kyshona Knight top scored in the innings with just 16 runs. Barbados women batted for the entire 20 overs but failed to get across the 100 runs mark.
As Indian women proceed into the semi-finals, they will try and put in everything to win the prestigious gold medal, an honor that will be remembered by ages to come.
Teams:
Barbados Women Playing XI: Deandra Dottin, Hayley Matthews(c), Kycia Knight(w), Kyshona Knight, Aaliyah Alleyne, Trishan Holder, Alisa Scantlebury, Shakera Selman, Shamilia Connell, Shaunte Carrington, Shanika Bruce
India Women Playing XI: Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Taniya Bhatia(w), Deepti Sharma, Pooja Vastrakar, Radha Yadav, Sneh Rana, Meghna Singh, Renuka Singh
