Smriti Mandhana on Women’s Asia Cup win against Bangladesh: ‘It's good comeback after that loss, really proud of girls’

Sylhet: India’s stand-in captain Smriti Mandhana lauded her team’s comprehensive 59-run victory over Bangladesh in the Women’s Asia Cup, terming it as a “good comeback” within 24 hours of losing to Pakistan in a low-scoring contest. India, now with four wins out of five games, are through to the semi-finals of the continental event. “It was disappointing in the last match (versus Pakistan). It’s good to come back after that loss, really proud of the girls. Today it was a total team performance,” Mandhana said after the match. While she herself contributed 47 off 38 balls, the regular vice-captain was all praise for young Shafali Verma and the talented Jemimah Rodrigues.

“Shafali batted well, and also Jemimah played well. We could have scored 10 runs more while batting. We had to keep bowling dot balls, and we had to wait for their batters to make mistakes, which they did. Our bowlers bowled really well,” she added. Player-of-the-match Shafali, who also had career-best bowling figures of 2/10, admitted that pitch was not conducive for stroke play. “I am always ready to give my best for the team (with the bat and ball). It was a bit difficult pitch for batting as the ball kept low. I have put in a lot of hard work and want to thank my family and friends for their support. “We are very happy with our performance, everyone played really well.” Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana blamed poor execution in the Powerplay while bowling as the reason for her team’s defeat. “We didn’t bowl well in the powerplay. We bowled too many loose balls. We couldn’t get many runs in our powerplay either. Our main bowlers couldn’t execute their plans,” she said.