India qualify for Women's Asia Cup semifinals with three consecutive wins

India rested skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and ace allrounder Pooja Vastrakar in their game against Nepal, and the decision before the knockouts proved to be right. They defeated Nepal by 82 runs with ease in a clinical and dominant display of cricket in Dambulla. 

With this win, India registered their third win on the trot and advanced to the semifinals with a massive net run rate of +3.615.

Openers Shafali Verma (81 off 48) and Dayalan Hemalatha (47 off 42) put up a spirited 122-run stand in just 14 overs on Tuesday (July 23), and Nepal never really recovered from there. Their inexperienced batters couldn’t match the required run rate at any point in their innings. Arundhati Reddy, Deepti Sharma, and Radha Yadav ensured that the women from Kathmandu were restricted to 96/9, chasing India’s 178/3. 

Meanwhile, Pakistan have also qualified for the top four, having won two of their three games in Group A. Their only loss in the group stages came against India. 

Sadly for Nepal and UAE, their losses today ended their 2024 Women’s T20I Asia Cup campaigns. 

Group B, however, is still open. While Sri Lanka have won both its group games and are primed to end up in the top four as the group's topper, the second position in the group is still up for grabs, and both Thailand and Bangladesh have one win and one loss each so far. 

The fate of this group will be decided on July 24 when Sri Lanka women go against Thailand, and Bangladesh face Malaysia on the last day of group stage games in the tournament. 

Both the semifinals are scheduled for July 26 in Dambulla itself. 

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