Record Crowd for Asian Derby

A record crowd of 18,814 turned up to watch India play Pakistan at Old Trafford. It is the highest attendance for a group stage match at a T20 World Cup. Little wonder. Cricket fans the world over love to see these two teams play each other, but it is all too rare an occasion.

Harmanpreet Kaur won the coin toss for India and had no hesitation in batting first on what was a good wicket. Shafali Verma tonked world number one bowler, Sadia Iqbal, for a six off the fist ball of the match. By the end of the over the bowler had caught the edge of the bat and Muneeba Ali completed the job.

Jemimah Rodrigues went for 1 in the fourth over and Pakistan looked on top, but that omits what was happening at the other end. A collection of Smriti Mandhana‘s delightful lofted cover drives, a very handsome straight drive – vintage stuff. Harmanpreet Kaur joined the party too. The feature of this partnership of 91 was the traditional stroke play. No reverse sweeps, no helicopters, just good cricket strokes from both batters.

Smriti eventually fell for 68 and Harmanpreet for 36. The hot sauce at the end of the meal was provided by Richa Ghosh with 34 from 17 deliveries. India finished with a solid 170/6.

A good Powerplay by Pakistan, provided by Muneeba Ali (41) and Gull Feroza (12) set up the Pakistan chase well, but once one fell, it caused a domino effect. That domino was the Indian spinners. Deepti Sharma returned a career best of 5-10, and with it took her back to the top of the all time wicket takers (166)  in T20 Internationals. Oddly enough for this legendary allrounder, it was only her second five wicket haul in T20s, the first being in April this year against South Africa.  Shree Charani‘s 3-21 was the other headache for the Pakistan batters.

Deepti Sharma was named Player of the Match and India picked up 2 valuable points, along with a good NRR to take them to the top of the table in Pool A.

Scores:

India 170/6 (Smriti Mandhana 68, Harmanpreet Kaur 36, Richa Ghosh 34, Fatima Sana 2-33, Sadia Iqbal 2-41) defeated
Pakistan 106  (Muneeba Ali 41, Deepti Sharma 5-10, Shree Charani 3-21) by 70 runs

POTM: Deepti Sharma