The Indian women's team started their Women’s 20-20 World Cup 2023 campaign by defeating their arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday, February 12 in Newland, Cape Town. After winning the toss and opting to bat first, Pakistan scored 149 runs for 4 wickets in 20 overs. In response, India won the match by seven wickets with one over remaining. This is the second biggest successful run chase in the history of the Women’s 20-20 World Cup.
Meanwhile, after the match, both teams shared some beautiful moments together as players from both teams could be seen clicking selfies together while some players were cracking jokes. These were some rare moments as both nations shared some heated moments earlier whether it is men’s cricket or women’s.
Watch the video here:
Players' interactions after the #INDvPAK match at Newlands 🇵🇰🇮🇳#BackOurGirls | #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/Yc4YcKxV2v
— Pakistan Cricket (@TheRealPCB) February 13, 2023
Pakistan had a poor start as opener Javeria Khan lost her wicket to Deepti Sharma in the second over. Bismah Maroof and Muneeba Ali took Pakistan to 39/1 at the end of the power play. In the end, Pakistan scored a respectable score of 149/4 in 20 overs, thanks to the brilliant performance of Bismah Maroof (68 not out in 55 balls) and Ayesha Naseem (43 not out in 25 balls).
Radha Yadav picked 2 wickets for India
While chasing 150 runs, Shafali Verma and Yastika Bhatia started well for India. However, in the last over of the power play, Sadia Iqbal dismissed Yastika on 17 runs. Both added 38 runs for the first wicket. After this, Shefali and Jemima Rodrigues took the innings forward, but Pakistan gave a second blow to India in the 10th over when Nahsra Sandhu dismissed Shafali. Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur departed early as Sandhu dismissed her in the 14th over to put Pakistan ahead in the match.
However, Rodrigues scored an unbeaten half-century (53 not out in 38 balls) to make a strong comeback for India in the run chase and along with Richa Ghosh, who played an unbeaten knock of 31 runs off just 20 balls, helped India to win by seven wickets in 19 overs.