India start favourite against Sri Lanka in pursuit of 7th Asia cup title

A ruthless Indian team would look to reassert its supremacy and aim to win an unprecedented seventh Asia Cup title when it clashes with Sri Lanka in the final here on SaturdayThe tournament brought to fore Indias depth as the younger crop of players has shouldered the burden of taking the team to the final without any tangible contribution from skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and her deputy Smriti MandhanaSuch has been the impact of the Indian team that skipper Harmanpreet played only four games 81 runs and in total faced a only 72 balls in those matchesEven Mandhana who led in three games skipped one game and didnt need to contribute muchThe biggest takeaway from a tournament like this is that Indian teams junior members could react to pressure situations in a perfect manner when they were thrown at the deep end of the poolAlso Read Harmanpreet Kaur Had to work hard against Thai bowlersThe most heartening aspect was how three seasoned youngsters 18 yearold Shafali Verma 161 runs and 3 wickets 22yearold Jemimah Rodrigues 215 runs and 25yearold Deepti Sharma 94 runs and 13 wickets put their hands up and carried the team through to the summit clashThe only blip in an otherwise flawless campaign was a defeat against archrivals Pakistan due to some bizarre planning by coach Ramesh Powar and HarmanpreetIndia wont get a chance to settle scores with Pakistan at least in this edition as Sri Lanka knocked them out in the semifinalsAt least on paper the summit clash is a complete mismatch as only one Sri Lankan batter Oshadi Ranasinghe has managed to scale the 100plus strikerateOnly two batters Harshitha Madavi 201 runs and Nilakshi de Silva 124 runs have accumulated 100 plus runs across matchesEven their most wellknown woman cricketer Chamari Athapaththu has scored 96 runs at a below par strikerate of 85 plus In bowling only leftarm spinner Inoka Ranaweera 12 wickets has looked the partTo put it bluntly the quality of competition in Asia Cup isnt great and India as a team in terms of talent quotient as well as experience is a few lightyears ahead of the other neighbouring nationsHence Sri Lanka might find it extremely difficult to upset the Indian applecart although in the last edition in Malaysia four years back Bangladesh did shock the favourites in the finalThe Sri Lankan women enthralled the cricket lovers across the globe with a celebratory dance video after beating Pakistan which has since then gone viralBut if on Saturday they could get past Harmanpreets team it will be an icing on the cake with its mens team having already won the Asia Cup a month backFor India Jemimahs new found consistency and Deeptis dependability with both bat and the ball has been the hallmark Shafali who had a poor run prior to the tournament also found her bearings with the bat and is also bowling some mean legbreaksWhat would make India runaway favourites is the depth in their slow bowling department where Deepti Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Sneh Rana have all been very economicalSuch have been the conditions that seamers Renuka Singh and Meghna Singh were not required much Meghna in fact didnt play the semifinal against ThailandThe track at the Sylhet stadium has been on the slower side where strokemaking is extremely difficultIn the round robin encounter between the two teams India batted first and scored 150 and bowled out Sri Lanka for 109SquadsIndia Harmanpreet Kaur captain Smriti Mandhana vc Shafali Verma S Meghana Jemimah Rodrigues Deepti Sharma Richa Ghosh wk Dayalan Hemalatha Sneh Rana Radha Yadav Rajeshwari Gayakwad Renuka Thakur Meghna Singh Kiran Navgire and Pooja VastrakarSri Lanka Chamari Athapaththu captain Nilakshi de Silva Kavisha Dilhari Achini Kulasuriya Sugandha Kumari Harshitha Samarawickrama Madhushika Methtananda Hasini Perera Odhadi Ranasinghe Inoka Ranaweera Anushka Sanjeewani Kaushani Nuthyangana Malsha Shehani and Rashmi SilvaMatch Starts 1 pmThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever