Women in Blue stay undefeated in Group Stage. Will this be India’s year? #WWT20

Indian Women Team 2 steps away from winning the Women’s T20 World Cup 2020!

India has been on a roll in the ongoing Women’s T20 World Cup 2020.

Image result for t20 world cup women India started off their campaign on the very first day of the match against the hosts Australia and registered a remarkable win. It was actually a shocker for the defending champions to lose the match. Not very long ago, in fact, 2 weeks ago Australia had defeated India in a Tri-Nation Series. But India had worked well and grouped up together to defeat Australia in a match where India scored only 134. This victory brought a lot of confidence in the Indian camp. India in a similar manner went on to defeat Bangladesh and New Zealand teams consecutively to enter the semi-finals. The final victory came against Sri Lanka which was the only victory batting second for India.

Indians victories had a similar run of play in every match.

16-year-old Shafali Verma from Haryana is the key player for India. Nobody would’ve expected such performances from her. She was brilliant with bat, opening the innings Shafali scored 161 runs in the 4 matches. The pattern of victory was the same for India in all 4 matches. Shafali scored quickfire runs, the middle order had collapsed and then spin bowlers took wickets at crucial intervals to register a win for the team. This was the theme of the victories all through. Winning all 4 matches means India is undefeated. India topped Group A and will play 2nd place in England from Group B.

India had never won T20 World Cup since its inaugural edition in 2009.

Image result for shafali verma wct20India’s best performances were reaching Semi-finals in 2009, 2010 and 2018. Of all the editions, 2018 has so much similarity to the 2020 edition. India was undefeated in 2018 as well but lost badly against England in Semis. Even then Smrithi Mandhana was the best player like this time Shafali Verma is. The only difference here is the retirement of Mithali Raj. In the 2018 World Cup, there was a controversy on why captain Harmanpreet Kaur left Mithali Raj in the line-up. While there is a high chance of rain on the match day, India has to work on its middle-order performance and the skipper needs to take responsibility and score enough runs. She has been bad with the bat but good at captaincy.

Now for some interesting facts, since the 2015 Men’s World Cup – Indian cricket team both Men’s and Women’s have been playing some excellent cricket and were outstanding in all the major tournaments. Be it T20 world up, the ODI World cup or the Champions Trophy. We might have won the group stages and stood undefeated, we always faltered in the knockouts. Indian women lost in the 2018 T20 WC semi-finals, Indian women lost in the finals of the 2017 Women’s World Cup. Coming to men’s trophies, we know India lost in semis of 2016 T20 WC, Finals of 2017 Champions Trophy, Lost semis in the 2019 World Cup. These are the ghosts haunting the Indian cricket team in the major tournament knockouts.  

England coincidently is the team who put the brake on our efforts to win the trophy. Both 2018 WT20 and WC 2017 India lost to the England team. March 5th 2020 thus becomes a historic day and many fans look forward to the day. Hopefully, India will do well and come out victorious. There are high chances of rain on the day and there is no reserve day. So if it rains, then India will go through to finals as table toppers.

Image result for t20 world cup

But surely India would want to win and enter the finals and when India plays either Australia or South Africa on the 8th of March and wins it, that’ll be the best “Women’s Day Gift Ever”!

“Will the ghosts be defeated by Shafali’s quick runs, Poonam’s Spin and Shikha’s Pace”? 5th March 2020 is the date to watch out for. 

Published by Sriram

A Teacher trying to Learn new things and explore the world each day! Believe in Happiness by the virtue of sacrifice and forgiveness.

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