{"id":3964,"date":"2025-10-01T08:01:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T00:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=3964"},"modified":"2025-10-01T08:01:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T00:01:51","slug":"india-battle-to-opening-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/india-battle-to-opening-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"India battle to opening victory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The battle of the hosts at the 2025 Women&#8217;s Cricket World Cup went the way of India in an intriguing match in Guwahati.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A crowd of 22,843 were present at the Assam Cricket Association Stadium, breaking the previous record of 15,935 for the highest attendance of a group match at either the ICC Women&#8217;s Cricket World Cup or ICC Women&#8217;s T20 World Cup.  And they were treated to a seesaw affair, with India eventually winning by 58 runs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the final result was a comfortable victory for the home side, they needed a century stand for the seventh wicket from Amanjot Kaur and Deepti Sharma to rescue a perilous situation with the bat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sharma then played a starring role with the ball, taking three for 54, as Sri Lanka fell short of the 270 runs they needed in 47 overs after the game was shortened due to a couple of rain delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India suffered an early blow when Smriti Mandhana picked out Vishmi Gunaratne at deep point off the bowling of Udeshika Prabodhani for just eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harleen Deol joined Pratika Rawal and the pair proceeded to build slowly, adding 67 either side of a rain delay, before a second catch for Gunaratne, Inoka Ranaweera removing Rawal for 37.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With skipper Harmanpreet Kaur entering the fray, the game was evenly poised, with India 81 for two in the 20th over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pair combined to add 39 in six overs before a dramatic collapse sparked by Ranaweera (4\/46).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The spinner kicked things off by snagging Deol for 48 as she misjudged a lifted drive and chipped to extra cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jemimah Rodrigues was then beaten all ends up and bowled the next ball before a third wicket in the over, the skipper, caught behind for 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suddenly, India were in all sorts of trouble and things got worse when Richa Ghosh found Prabodhani off the bowling of Chamari Athapaththu for two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That brought Amanjot Kaur to the crease, joining Deepti Sharma with India 124 for six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stability was the order of the day and the pair proceeded to bat positively to rebuild, with Amanjot taking a few extra chances on her way to a brilliant 57.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She was helped by some fielding errors, dropped three times on her way to a half-century on her World Cup debut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eventually Gunaratne held onto arguably the toughest chance of the lot, a brilliant grab near the boundary off Prabodhani to end the partnership at 103.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A second rain delay had reduced the innings to 47 overs and Sneh Rana made a valuable contribution down the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She hit a pair of sixes on her way to an unbeaten 28 off just 15 balls, while Sharma completed her half-century, going for 53 off the final ball of the innings as India finished on a respectable 269 for eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In reply, Sri Lanka made a solid start before Hasini Perera missed a straight one-off debutant Kranti Gaud and was bowled for 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chamari Athapaththu and Harshitha Samarawickrama added 52 for the second wicket before Sharma took the all-important wicket of the Sri Lankan skipper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Athapaththu had looked dangerous with four fours and three sixes but was beaten by a full delivery from Sharma, departing bowled for 43.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Samarawickrama was next to go, trapped in front by Shree Charani for 29 with Vishmi Gunaratne (11) suffering the same fate off Amanjot to leave Sri Lanka 105 for four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chase was starting to falter, and Sharma grabbed a second wicket when Kaveesha Dilhari edged one behind for 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sharma continued to chip away, with Anushka Sanjeewani (6) next to go before Sneh Rana got in on the act, getting Nilakshika Silva (35) and Sugandika Kumari (10), both bowled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Achini Kulasuriya fell with 200 not yet up before Pratika Rawal finished off proceedings with eight balls to spare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India 269\/8 in 47 overs (Amanjot Kaur 57, Deepti Sharma 53; Inoka Ranaweera 4\/46, Udeshika Prabodhani 2\/55)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka 211 all out in 45.4 overs (Chamari Athapaththu 43, Nilakshika Silva 35; Deepti Sharma 3\/54, Sneh Rana 2\/32)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India won by 58 runs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The battle of the hosts at the 2025 Women&#8217;s Cricket World Cup went the way of India in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-3964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-cricket"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed.jpg",1932,828,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed-300x129.jpg",300,129,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed-768x329.jpg",640,274,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed-1024x439.jpg",640,274,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed-1536x658.jpg",1536,658,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed.jpg",1932,828,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/newsbeat\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/INDIA-CRICKET_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3966,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions\/3966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}