India vs Pakistan, Women's World Cup Live Cricket Score: INDIA 54/1 after 10 overs
FROM VINAYAKK'S ANALYSIS OF INDIA VS SRI LANKA:
During India's batting innings, an expected problem resurfaced again. As good as Smriti Mandhana's ODI form has been over the last two years, there is always a nagging concern: what happens when she gets out early and cheaply? In their brief time together as an opening pair, Mandhana and Pratika Rawal have more often than not hit a good balance between their tempos. Rawal's more calculated approach has freed up Mandhana, but when the leftie superstar has been dismissed first, and Rawal gets together with Harleen Deol, the lull in run-scoring has been significant, even if not for the entirety of their partnership, at least for the first 7-8 overs.
Sample the match on Tuesday against Sri Lanka. When Mandhana got out, the score was 14/1 after 3.2 overs. While there is sound logic to not go gung-ho right away, both Rawal and Deol went into a shell soon after. The first 70 balls of their partnership yielded just 38 runs, a partnership strike rate of 54.28%. And these weren't tough conditions too, either. Sri Lanka were able to keep the two right-handers quiet just by bowling stump-to-stump and cutting the angles superbly inside the ring with their ground-fielding.
After the powerplay, around the 15-over mark, the dot-ball percentage in India's innings was a whopping 69%. There was an over where Rawal hit a full ball that was there to be driven as well as a short ball that was there to be cut, straight to the fielder at short cover. Due to the initial reluctance to play the lofted shots with field restrictions in place, the two batters struggled to find the gaps in the field and found fielders with the kind of accuracy archers and shooters would be proud of. The mere fact that Mandhana was out early is not a good enough excuse for the number of dot balls they played out.