ICC Women’s World Cup 2017: India vs New Zealand, 5 things India did right to win the virtual quarter-final
India demolished New Zealand in what was a virtual quarter-final and made it to the last four of the Women’s World Cup. One of the legends of the sport, Mithali Raj led from the front and scored a well-crafted century to help the Women in Blue register a mammoth 186-run win.
With the help of Harmanpreet Kaur and Veda Krishnamurthy, the skipper took India’s score to 265, which proved to be a bit too much for the White Ferns, who bowed out of the tournament with this loss. Indian women took all the right steps to storm into the semi-finals as they finished as fourth-placed team on the points table.
Here are five things which they did right throughout the course of the match to earn the win.
#1 Mithali Raj stepping up when team needed her the most
Being invited by the NZ captain Suzie Bates to bat first, India lost both their openers with only 21 runs on the board. Aware of the fact that this was a must-win match, Mithali Raj put her head down and stabilised the conditions for her team.
The skipper came in to bat in the fourth over and lost her wicket on the penultimate delivery of the innings. Spending more than three hours in the middle, Mithali scored 109 runs with the help of 11 boundaries. Never in her innings, the highest ODI run-scorer looked edgy and didn’t let the NZ bowling attack put any sort of pressure on her.
She stitched a 132-run partnership with Harmanpreet Kaur for the third wicket and a 108-run partnership with Veda Krishnamurthy for the fifth wicket.