Today's Edition
Kuumar Shyam (Aletihad)
The highlight for the players at the Women’s T20 World Cup, ongoing in Dubai and Sharjah, is a historic equal prize money to match the men. While the highlight for the UAE-based cricket fans at the World Cup will always be the India vs. Pakistan clash, just like in the men’s equivalent.
And so when 16,000-plus people thronged the 25-000 capacity Dubai International Cricket Stadium on a hot, sweltering afternoon on Sunday, it may not be a sold-out clash like the men, but that does not deny the fact that it remained the headline clash of the tournament, so much that it revolves around it in the group stages.
Sunday’s attendance was the highest in the history of the event in a league match. Which meant snaking crowds and long delays to enter the stadium, fans singing national anthems, flags painted on the cheeks and flags in tow.
In the build-up to the event, the corporate companies had a ball marketing the event and going overboard on the jingoistic quotient.
Yet, the similarities end there.
A packed crowd of blue and green to mark Dubai's 100th T20I 🎉#INDvPAK #T20WorldCup #WhateverItTakes pic.twitter.com/hSNH1hiwon
— ICC (@ICC) October 6, 2024
On the eve of the match, during a practice session, there was no mad craze for autographs when the teams arrived at the ICC Academy down the road from the stadium. When the batsmen took the field with the bat to practise their shots, there was not even one ball boy to go fetch in temperatures hovering near the 40º mark.
Both teams played adjacent to each other with just a dressing room separating the practice grounds. But there was no moment like the famous ‘Babar Azam seeking out Virat Kohli’.
Nor was there any psychological warfare with word-play given that the India women team, holding a superior record compared to their rivals, are under pressure after their opening-game heavy 58-run defeat to New Zealand. Pakistan, on the other hand, were full on confidence after winning against Sri Lanka despite having only 115 runs on the board.
And then Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat, an easy decision keeping in mind the weather. However, the weak batting belly of Pakistan surfaced again as India kept chipping away at the wickets to restrict them to 106 on a wicket that was slow and tricky to navigate.
It was a good opportunity for India to rectify their run-rate but they left it to scale the immediate task of finding a win first and managed to cross over the line by six wickets with only seven balls to spare. Both teams went into over-rate on time, but India would end up with something to cheer about. Yet, the cracks in the paper have been only partly fixed.
Despite the win, India remain behind Pakistan in the middle of the five-team Group A. The net run-rate may come into play but India first need to ensure they win all their matches. Player of the match Arundhati Reddy, who took three wickets for 19 runs, had two catches dropped by the same player Asha Sobhana.
Reddy said a question to Aletihad about the fielding being a concern. “Catches dropped on my bowling is not an issue. It happens, but honestly, we all are working hard on our fielding in practice. We are a work in progress, but we are trying.”
Losing captain Sana Fatima said the team was hoping for a total of 140 on a batting track before it transpired that strokemaking was going to be difficult. She led by example as the lead bowler of the team and came close to notching a hat-trick with India on the doorstep of victory. “We still thought we had a chance. Couple of more wickets could have swung it; we were still trying to go for that win.”
Meanwhile, her counterpart, Harmanpreet Kaur, dropped down to No.4 in batting and scored a solid 29 runs before retiring hurt on the penultimate ball of the innings. She had 18 innings at No.3 but could not score a half-century. Shafali Verma (32) and in-form Jemimah Rodrigues (23), at one down, were the bulwarks for India’s batting.
Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur retired hurt after experiencing some discomfort around her neck.
— InsideSport (@InsideSportIND) October 6, 2024
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