Shafali Verma steers India to Women’s Asia Cup final

Dubai (TIP): Shafali Verma lived a charmed life for her stroke-filled 64 off 40 balls as India marched into yet another Women’s Asia Cup final with a comfortable 40-run win over Bangladesh here on Thursday, September 10.
On a slow surface where batting was a struggle for majority of the batters, Shafali stood out with her fluent effort to take India to 149 for five. The Indian opener was dropped as many as three times and she duly made Bangladesh pay for those mistakes.
Considering the conditions and India’s bowling resources, the seven-time champions were expected to defend the target and they did rather comfortably, limiting Bangladesh to 109 for 7 in 20 overs.
Bangladesh never threatened India despite the aggressive intent of opener Juairiya Ferdous (14 off 18). Eventually Ferdous and her opening partner Dilara Akter (21 off 26) fell while attempting to clear the mid-wicket boundary. Kranti Gaud’s running catch to get rid of Akter was a brilliant effort on an otherwise ordinary day for the fielders.
Like in the last game, Pratika Rawal dropped a couple of catches.
The Indian spin trio of Deepti Sharma (3/26), Shree Charani (1/14) and Prema Rawat (1/21), delivered in spin-friendly conditions.
It has been a low scoring tournament mainly due to the slow nature of the pitches here. Considering that and Bangaldesh’s batting, India deep down knew they had got enough on the board.They play either Pakistan or Sri Lanka in the final scheduled for Sunday.With seven titles (four in 50-over and three T20s), India are the most successful team in the tournament. They had suffered a shocking loss to Sri Lanka in the previous edition.
Earlier, the Bangladesh bowling attack, which has been impressive in the tournament, was able to keep the accomplished Indian batters quiet for majority of the innings.