IND vs BAN: The Indian team defeated Bangladesh by 40 runs in the semi-finals of the Women’s Asia Cup 2026 to book a place in the final. This is the team’s 10th time in the tournament’s final. Batting first at the Dubai International Stadium on Thursday (September 10), Team India scored 149 for 6 in 20 overs. Shafali Verma top-scored for the team, scoring 64 runs off 40 balls, including 7 fours and 3 sixes. Sultana Khatun took the most wickets for Bangladesh in this innings, taking 2 wickets.
Apart from Shafali Verma, the rest of Team India’s batter were virtually flops. Opening batsman Smriti Mandhana was dismissed for just 2 runs. Pratika Rawal scored 20, captain Harmanpreet Kaur 24, Richa Ghosh 21, and Deepti Sharma 13. Bharti Fulmali was run out without even opening her account.
Even though Team India’s score was a little low in this match, but the bowlers’ amazing performance came in handy on a difficult batting pitch. Bangladesh’s chase started poorly, but their finish was even worse. The team managed only 109 for 7 in 20 overs. Shorna Akhtar top-scored for the team, scoring 22 runs, including one four and one six. In the second innings, Deepti Sharma took the most wickets for India, taking three. India now awaits the winner of the second semifinal between Sri Lanka and Pakistan for the title clash.
“We are always up for the finals to do well”
Indian all-rounder Deepti Sharma, who delivered a standout performance (3/26) along with a late batting cameo (13 runs), reflected on her dual role. “Whenever I get an opportunity in batting, I always trust that I can contribute. Either bowling first or batting first, it doesn’t matter to me, but I always contribute as an all-rounder.” She added, “It depends on the situation, in what number I am going to bat. So, before I go to bat, it doesn’t matter 2, 3, or 6 balls—whenever I go to play those balls, I’ll try to play my shots. Once it’s in my area, I’ll try to hit those, yeah.”
Addressing India’s fielding mishaps during the match, Deepti highlighted, “As a team in fielding, we are doing well. It doesn’t bother us that much. We are always up for the finals to do well in all three departments. The way things are going, really happy with the way we have been batting and bowling.”
Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana expressed disappointment over her team’s execution, particularly regarding their fielding and death-over bowling. She said, “Very disappointing, because this is the only side where we were doing really well in the last three game. On this sort of wicket, when we leak so many runs and give a lot of chances to the opponent, I think it’s very difficult to chase.”
She added, “I think we have achieved a lot of things from here, I guess. One thing that we have learned from here is that we kept ourselves very limited here. So in future we really wanted to play our all-out game and we just need to execute ourselves when the middle.”
Brief Scores: India 149/6 (Shafali Verma 64; Sultana Khatun 2-30) beat Bangladesh 109/7 (Shorna Akter 22*; Deepti Sharma 3-26) by 40 runs.
Player of the match- Shafali Verma
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