India Women sealed their place in the semifinals of the ongoing Asia Cup in Sri Lanka on Sunday (July 21) with a 78-run win over UAE. It was a dominating performance from the team after a comfortable win over arch-rivals Pakistan and Richa Ghosh was one of the star players for the women in blue.
Having come out to bat at number six in the 12th over of the innings, Richa showcased her brilliant hitting skills smashing an unbeaten 64 off 29 balls at a strike-rate of 220.69 with 12 fours and a six to her name. Thanks to her knock, India posted their highest total - 201/5 - in T20Is. In the process, she also broke Smriti Mandhana's record of highest strike-rate in a fifty-plus score for India.
Smriti had scored an unbeaten 51off 25 balls against Sri Lanka in the 2022 Asia Cup final at a strike-rate of 204 and Richa ended with the strike-rate of 220.69 to create the all-time T20I record for India. Ghosh's 26-ball half-century is also the second fastest ever in women's T20 Asia Cup behind Mandhana's 25-ball effort in the final of the tournament two years ago.
Among other records, Richa Ghosh also registered the highest individual score by an Indian wicketkeeper in T20Is breaking the 14-year-old record of Sulakshana Naik who scored 59 against Sri Lanka back in 2010.
As far as the match is concerned, after posting 201 runs in their 20 overs, India comfortably defended the score winning by 78 runs. UAE could only muster 123 runs for the loss of seven wickets in their 20 overs with Kavisha Egodage being the top-scorer for scoring 40 runs off 32 balls. She had also bowled well earlier picking up two wickets for 36 runs in her four overs.
