CHENNAI: Smriti Mandhana once again stepped up in the big final to help India beat Sri Lanka and win the country's first gold medal at the ongoing Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan. Mandhana, who scored a 45-ball 79, set the tone, helping India post 216/3 before beating Sri Lanka by 147 runs.
India came into the contest as favourites, and from the very first ball, Mandhana and Shafali Verma hit the ground running. The classy opening duo added 99 runs for the first wicket, with Shafali smashing 29-ball 48. Mandhana was the aggressor early on, and Verma continued from where she left off in the semifinal. If Verma scored a century against Bangladesh, it seemed like Tuesday was Mandhana's turn.
The southpaw, already the leading run-scorer in the format, rose to the big stage and cruised to her fifty. After Verma got out, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur joined her. Having moved up to No. 3, Kaur struggled to get going. Mandhana, on the other hand, batted like a dream as she looked set for a big hundred.
Even as Kaur got out for 19 from 17 balls, Mandhana kept going in the hopes of taking India past 200 and crossing the three-figure mark. However, as fate would have it, Mandhana missed out on yet another century as she fell against the run of play for 79 runs off 45 balls, trying to hit a big shot off Sugandika Kumari.
Once she got out, Richa Ghosh smashed an unbeaten 22-ball 49, taking India to 216/3. In response, Sri Lanka got off to a steady start, but their hopes relied heavily on Chamari Athapaththu stepping up. And for a while it did look like she might, but Chamari fell trying to hit Deepti Sharma over the ropes.
From thereon, it was only a matter of time before India bundled out Sri Lanka for 69 and secured the gold medal.
Brief scores: India 216/3 in 20 ovs (Mandhana 79, Shafali 48, Ghosh 49 n.o) bt Sri Lanka 69 all out in 15.4 ovs (Chamari 29, Deepti 3/6, Shafali 2/3).