Nisshin: The Indian women’s cricket team beat Sri Lanka by a record 147 runs at the Karogi Athletic Park in Nisshin, Aichi, in Japan on Tuesday to give India its first gold medal at the 2026 Asian Games.
The Indian women’s squad had won gold at the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023 as well.
While the Lankans settled for the silver, Pakistan bagged the bronze medal, after beating Bangladesh in the third-place playoff.
Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and elected to bat in the final. India posted 216/3 – an Asian Games record – riding on a breezy 45-ball 79 by Smriti Mandhana. Shafali Verma scored 48 while Richa Ghosh remained unbeaten at 49.
The Indian bowlers then bowled out Sri Lanka for a paltry 69 to complete a comfortable victory. This was the highest margin of victory in a T20I match for the Indian women’s side.
The Sri Lankan bowlers proved no match for Indian openers Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma, who piled on 66 runs in the powerplay.
Shafali, who scored a century in the semi-finals against Bangladesh, hit Sri Lankan captain and star all-rounder Chamari Athapaththu for three sixes in the fifth over.
Mandhana reached her 37th T20I fifty in 30 balls while Shafali stopped two short of a half-century, falling to 17-year-old spinner Chamudi Praboda in the 10th over with India one short of 99.
Harmanpreet then joined Smriti for a 42-run stand before Kavisha Dilhari had the Indian skipper caught in the 15th over. Smriti also failed to bat through the innings, getting out in the 17th over.
A quickfire 49 by Richa off 22 deliveries helped India reach the massive total. The 216/3 posted by India was a record. The previous record was held by Hong Kong China, which had posted 202/4 against Mongolia in the quarter-final qualifiers at Hangzhou 2023.
Chamari Athapaththu led the Sri Lankan chase from the front but India managed early breakthroughs through Shafali, who dismissed Imesha Dulani and Hasini Perera in the third and fifth overs, respectively.
Deepti Sharma got the big one, removing Athapaththu (29 off 21) just after the powerplay. The wicket punched the wind out of the Lankan sails.
Wickets kept tumbling at short intervals thereafter as the Lankan innings limped to a stop in 15.4 overs.
Deepti was the pick of the Indian bowlers with figures of 3/6. Shafali Verma, Shree Charani and Shreyanka Patil also contributed two wickets each.
