The Indian women’s cricket team on Monday defeated Ireland by five runs in their final group match of the ICC T20 World Cup-2023 according to the Duckworth-Lewis method. With this, Team India, captained by Harmanpreet Kaur, has also made it to the semi-finals. Batting first, India scored 155 runs losing six wickets in 20 overs with the help of Smriti Mandhana’s 87 runs. Ireland came down to chase the target but only 8.2 overs of this innings could be completed, after which the rain came and then the match could not be played. Ireland’s team was five runs behind the Duckworth-Lewis rule and hence lost
India has made it to the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup for the fifth time, while this team has reached the semi-finals for the third time in a row. India played the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup in 2009 and 2010. After this the team has made it to the semi-finals in 2018, 2020 and now in 2023. Harmanpreet was the captain of the team on all these three occasions.
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Chasing the target of 156 runs, the Ireland team did not get a good start and got a blow on the very first ball. In the process of taking two runs on the very first ball, Amy Hunter was run out after scoring one run. Orla Prendergast also returned to the pavilion on the fifth ball of the same over. Renuka Singh bowled her. She could not even open the account after playing four balls. After this, however, there was no setback for Ireland. Gabby Lewis and captain Laurie Delany then took over the team. Both of them shared a sparkling partnership of 52 runs. But then the rain came and the umpires gave the victory to India, not seeing the conditions to hold the match.
Earlier, Harmanpreet won the toss and decided to bat first. For her, opener Mandhana played an excellent innings. This batsman hit nine fours and three sixes in an attractive innings off 56 balls. She gave a strong start to the team by sharing 62 runs for the first wicket with Shefali Verma (24) and 52 runs for the second wicket with captain Harmanpreet Kaur (13). On a difficult pitch for batting, Shefali and Harmanpreet struggled to score runs but it had no effect on Smriti. Shefali hit three fours in her 29-ball innings while Harmanpreet could not hit a single four in her 20-ball innings. Smriti and Shefali added 62 runs in the first 10 overs. Shefali once again failed to convert her start into a big innings. She returned to the pavilion after being dismissed by captain Delaney. Where Harmanpreet was struggling to score runs, Smriti was stealing runs by running along with taking the ball across the boundary line. She completed his half-century with a six over leg-spinner Cara Murray. After this, she took an aggressive stand and hit two consecutive fours against Georgina Dempsey and hit a six against this bowler. Denelli got Ireland back in the match by dismissing Harmanpreet and Richa Ghosh (0) on consecutive balls with catches in the deep .
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Quick wickets had no effect on Mandhana, she hit a four and a six in Denali’s over after hitting two fours against Kelly. She was caught by Prendergast in an attempt to hit another sixes. Deepti Sharma (zero) also returned to the pavilion on the next ball. Jemima Rodrigues hit two fours in the last over to take the team’s score past 150. She was stumped on the last ball and scored 19 runs in 12 balls with the help of three fours.