Vastrakar stars as India reach final

Hangzhou, Sep 24: Pooja Vastrakar bowled a sharp and incisive spell to take the Indian women’s cricket team to its maiden Asian Games final, crushing Bangladesh by eight wickets in a lopsided semifinal here on Sunday.
With three wickets in her first three overs, Vastrakar put the women’s team in the box seat.
Right arm seamer Vastrakar, who replaced Anjali Sarvani in the squad just before leaving India, had career-best figures of 4/17 in four overs as Bangladesh were bowled out for 51 in 17.5 overs – their lowest ever T20 score against the neighbours.
India will face Sri Lanka in the final on Monday. Lankans defeated defending champions Pakistan, who had won the gold at Incheon Games 2014, by six wickets in the semifinals.
Against Bangladesh, Vastrakar and her young new-ball partner Titas Sadhu (1/10 in 4 overs) extracted all the juice available from the deck as they bowled quick, with the bounce on offer also helping.
Only skipper Nigar Sultana (12) was able to reach double figures for Bangladesh.
The chase of 52 was a cakewalk as it was achieved in only 8.2 overs.
Kanika Ahuja (1 not out) and Jemimah Rodrigues (20 not out) took India home despite losing skipper Smriti Mandhana (7) and Shafali (17) cheaply.
It was also sweet revenge for the women’s team, who were forced to play the second game on the trot without their regular skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, who is serving a two-match suspension.
Harmanpreet was suspended due to her angry public outburst and criticism of the quality of Bangladeshi umpiring while playing against them in an away series a few months back.
The Indian women couldn’t have made a better statement than a performance as dominant as the one on Sunday. (PTI)
Brief Scores:
Bangladesh 51 in 17.5 overs (Pooja Vastrakar 4/17) lost to India 52/2 on 8.2 overs (Shafali Verma 17, Jemimah Rodrigues 20 not out).
Pakistan: 75/9 in 20 overs (Udeshika Prabhodini 3/21) lost to Sri Lanka: 77/4 in 16.4 overs (Harshitha Samarawickrama 23).