Indian women crowned as the continental champions for the seventh time

Probably the ones watching the Asia Cup final would have asked for a bit more of gametime but witnessing the Indian women play was such a treat to the sore eyes as they demolished their Sri Lankan counterparts to clinch their 7th continental title and it was absolute domination from the Women in Blue, to say the least.

Sri Lanka won the toss and opted to bat first on a pitch that seemed promising at the first glance. Before the Indian bowlers struck, it was a display of some stupendous field work where Renuka Singh and Pooja Vastrakar struck in quick success to cripple the two Lankan openers.

The fall of the two early scalps gave away to an avalanche that saw Sri Lanka wobbling, stuttering and eventually succumbing to the Blue supremacy as Renuka Singh was back at her phenomenal best while Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Sneh Rana continued their decent form with 4 wickets shared between them.

The Lankans could only crawl to a questionable 65 from their 20 overs with Oshadi Ranasinghe and Inoka Ranaweera being the only ones to cross double figures on a night where the others couldn’t reach the hallowed mark of 7.

Despite the early departure of Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues giving rise to worries about a replication of the first half of the opening innings, two of India’s most experienced campaigners, Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur steered the Indian ship to safety after the initial jitters were off, they went all guns blazing, snuffing out any hopes that the Lankans would have coaxed themselves with.

Renuka Singh was awarded the Player of the Match for her crushing display that bagged her three crucial wickets while Deepti Sharma was ennobled with the honour of the Player of the Series as she bagged 13 wickets and scored 94 runs throughout the tournament.