Indian Women defeat Pakistan for 10th time in a row

In a low scoring game, Indian Women’s team defeated Pakistan Women’s by 95 runs in their third match in the World Cup which is now their 10 successive win against the same side. Pakistan has never defeated Indian women’s team in all history and this record only widened after today. For India, Punam Raut was the top scorer with 47 to her name but the show stopper was Ekta Bisht who disrupted the Pakistani batting by claiming 5 wickets to her name. This is India’s third consecutive win in the World Cup after wins against England and West Indies earlier.

Batting first India posted 169/9 after an early fall of the youngster Smriti Mandhana. The second wicket partnership was well formed between Raut and Deepti Sharma for 67runs. But then the middle order failed miserably with 5 wickets falling for 18 runs. Sushma Verma’s final attempts got the team total to 169 in the allotted 50 overs. For Pakistan, Nashra Sindhu got 4 wickets including the captain Mithali Raj and was also instrumental in breaking the second wicket partnership which looked threatening.

In return, Pakistan was restricted to just 74 runs in total after a horrible batting display. They lost 3 wickets within 10 runs which were already a sign of the humiliation to come to their way. Captain Sana Mir was the top scorer with 29 runs and Nahida Khan scored 23. No other Pakistani player succeeded in reaching the double figures. Bisht was responsible for 3 of the first 4 wickets of Pakistan and was the sole reason for their destruction.

The overjoyed Indian captain, Mithali said post-match,”I am proud of Ekta’s performance. Whenever she has been handed the new ball, she has performed. There were some anxious moments when we lost the top-order (while batting). The partnership between Sushma Verma and Jhulan Goswami towards the end was also important. When we got to a total of 169, I knew that if we could bowl well, it could be anybody’s game,”

Bisht too spoke to TOI, “The plan was to pile on dot balls because we were confident of the target we set. I don’t face much of a problem bowling with the new ball. The track spun more than it had during our game against England. Irrespective of how the pitch is, my job is to bowl and take wickets and I hope I can continue doing that for my team.”

Bisht managed to keep an economy of 1.8 after her 10 overs which are by far the lowest in the World Cup. She was awarded the Man-of-the-Match for her exceptional performance.  Deepti Sharma though taking only one wicket also kept a low economy of 2.1. The next challenge ahead of India is that of the Sri Lankan women who have faced consecutive defeats from England and Australia.