India win big after racking up their highest T20I total

India 201 for 5 (Harmanpreet 66, Ghosh 64*, Egodage 2-36) beat UAE 123 for 7 (Egodage 40, Oza 36, Deepti 2-23) by 78 runs

India all but guaranteed themselves a semi-final spot with a convincing win over UAE in which their middle order got a much-needed hit out and their bowlers plenty of miles.

Harmanpreet Kaur top-scored with 66, but it was Richa Ghosh’s sensational late acceleration – she hit an unbeaten 29-ball 64 – that helped India post their first-ever score of 200-plus in T20Is.

UAE hardly posed a challenge, even though Esha Oza, the captain, and Kavisha Egodage gave good account of themselves in hitting 36 and 40 not out respectively. That UAE hit more than the 115 for 8 they managed against a lower-ranked Nepal should be confidence-boosting.

Despite the loss, UAE aren’t mathematically out of the semi-finals race. A win for Pakistan against Nepal in the evening game should keep them alive.

India wobble early

India were put in, and they weren’t particularly disappointed. There was the looming threat of their marauding openers – Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana – running away with it once again. But at 52 for 3 inside the powerplay, the opportunity was UAE’s to seize.

Among those who fell early, D Hemalatha would’ve been particularly disappointed at having missed out yet another opportunity to make the No. 3 spot her own. In nine innings at that position since the tour of Bangladesh, an unbeaten 41 she made in her first opportunity there remains the highest.

Two nights ago against Pakistan, she was out slicing a lofted hit to point for 14 in a low-pressure chase after the openers had shellacked 85 in 9.3 overs. Here, the openers were up and away quickly with the platform set – India brought up fifty inside five overs. But Hemalatha’s dismissal for 2 after she was bowled attempting a pull off Heena Hotchandani had India wobbling briefly.

One of the consequences from Hemalatha batting at No. 3 is that India have had to rejig a batting position for Jemimah Rodrigues, who has built a reputation of being a touch player. Hemalatha’s continued lean run could at some point have the team management into reinstating Rodrigues at No.3, considering the lower-order firepower at their disposal.

On Sunday, Rodrigues made all of 14 in a 54-run stand with Harmanpreet before picking out mid-off in her first attempt to hit over the top.

Harmanpreet, Richa up the tempo

Harmanpreet was happy to knock singles and twos early, but upped the tempo soon after the halfway mark, when she welcomed legspinner Vaishnavee Mahesh for back-to-back fours. On 31, she had a steak of luck when a leading edge while attempting to work one into the leg side landed short of backward point.

That aside, Harmanpreet seemed intent on taking the innings right till the end. Along the way, she brought out her plethora of sweeps that found different arcs on the leg-side boundary, ranging from deep backward square to wide long-on.

The beauty of Harmanpeet’s sweeps is that when on song, she has the ability to take the bowlers and pitch out of the equation; she can hit just as effectively against the turn as she can with it, primarily because of a giant forward stride and how she gets on top of the bounce most times.

At the other end, Ghosh made heads turn with some aesthetically pleasing cover drives and lofted hits with the spin. It’s a bit of a misconception that her game is only centered around power. On Sunday, she showed she can hit authentic strokes and find boundaries with regularity without looking to bash the ball.

She hit a crisp cover drive off her fourth delivery, and a six two balls later to quickly get into her stride. She was particularly severe on Oza’s gentle long hops, hitting her for four boundaries, including three back-to-back, in the 15th. Ghosh was comfortably the aggressor in the half-century stand off just 32 balls. Yet at 156 for 2 in 17 overs, 200 seemed a long way off.

It needed Harmanpreet to tee off in the penultimate over that brought India 17, and Ghosh’s five back-to-back boundaries off Heena Hotchandani’s left-arm spin in a 20-run final over to give India their highest total in women’s T20Is. Ghosh hit 54 of her 64 runs in boundaries (12 fours and a six).

UAE’s chase fizzles in powerplay

UAE barely made a push for the target. Theertha Satish took nine balls to get off the mark and was the first to fall in the fifth over as she chipped Renuka Singh to mid-off. Pooja Vastrakar had her first wicket six balls later when she beat Rinitha Rajith to hit top of off.

Oza held firm without looking spectacular, but showed signs of shifting gears when she muscled Deepti Sharma out of the ground. In Kavisha Edodage, she found some support as their pair added 40, before Oza became debutant Tanuja Kanwar’s first international wicket.

Kanwar, who has forced herself into contention on the back of an excellent WPL for Gujarat Giants, lulled her in flight and beat her in turn to have her stumped. She would finish with figures of 4-0-14-1 to cap off a dream debut that didn’t seem likely even 48 hours ago. From there on, the only academic interest left was to see if UAE could narrow the margin of defeat.