The Indian women’s cricket team has reached the final of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games after thrashing Bangladesh by 114 runs at Nisshin’s Karogi Athletic Park on Sunday. They will now play Sri Lanka in the gold medal match on Tuesday. Shafali Verma stole the show as she scored her maiden T20I ton, 100 not out off 49 balls, with the help of three fours and nine sixes on her way to becoming India’s highest six-hitter in women’s T20I games.
At the start of the match, she was three behind Smriti Mandhana (98), and by the end of the India innings, she stood at 104. Today, Smriti also reached the milestone of 100 sixes. Shafali created another record, it may be noted: that of maximum sixes by an Indian in a T20I innings. Harmanpreet Kaur earlier had hit 8 sixes against New Zealand at Providence in 2018.
Anyway, India captain Harmanpreet won the toss and decided to bat on a batting-friendly pitch. Shafali and Smriti looked in their element right from the outset. However, it was Verma who launched the early assault on the Bangladeshi bowlers. Smriti eventually went for 37, off the last ball of the powerplay with 72 runs on the board. During the course of her innings, she became the highest run-getter in women’s T20Is, going past Suzie Bates of New Zealand (4,758 runs).
Gunalan Kamalini struggled during her brief innings of 3 off 10 balls. Harmanpreet struggled too, early into her innings, but once she settled down, she played some lovely shots. Shafali at the other end was just fantastic. She racked up her fifty off just 24 balls. All through her innings, she looked in total control. Some of the credit also goes to Harmanpreet, who guided her very well. Her instructions to Shafali appeared to be: slow down a little, you don’t have to bat in the same vein.
Harman and Shafali added 94 runs for the third wicket off 55 balls, out of which 33 were played by the Indian skipper. Harmanpreet (40) and Richa Ghosh (2) departed in quick succession. Once into the nineties, Shafali became a little cautious. In fact, the last few runs of hers came via singles. Eventually, she reached her century off the last ball of the innings as India posted 195/4. She had Bharti Fulmali a lot to thank for, who took a single off the penultimate delivery. It was an emotional celebration for Shafali, which was understandable: she had, after all, ticked a massive box.
Bangladesh were never in the chase, if truth be told. Nandani Sharma, who once struck off back-to-back deliveries, and Deepti Sharma took three each as Nigar Sultana’s bunch was bowled out for 81 in 15.4 overs. Shree Charani, who had taken 4/10 against Japan, also picked up two. Kranti Gaud and Shryenka Patil were also among the wickets.
Earlier today at the same venue, Sri Lanka beat Pakistan in the first semifinal. Chasing 178 to win, Chamari Athapaththu scored 83 not out off just 50 balls to lead her team to a comfortable 8-wicket win with 13 balls to spare.