Nisshin (Japan) |Seasoned Indian spinners, led by the impressive Sree Charani, exploited the inexperience of Japanese batters to bowl out the hosts to an abysmally low 57 in the Asian Games women’s cricket quarterfinal here on Friday.
Bowling by choice, Indians never gave the Japan batters any chance to free their arms, which was reflected in the just three boundaries in the host team’s innings.
Japanese batters, who barely get to play top teams and for that matter even train regularly, could not find a way to force the pace throughout the innings.
In fact, they were even struggling to smack the ball past or over the ropes.
The Power Play yielded only 24 runs and the segment saw Japan batters hitting just two fours, and one of them was an edge through the slips.
But left-arm spinner Charani (4/10), who recorded her best figures in T20s, soon bagged the wickets of opener Haruna Iwasaki (10) and skipper Mai Yanagida off successive balls in the seventh over, continuing her recent red-hot form in this format.
In the back 10, spinner Shafali Verma (2/13) joined the list of wicket-takers as Japan slid further.
The off-spinner jettisoned Ayaka Kato-Stafford and Shimako Kato in the 15th and 17th over as their attempt to go for big, aerial shots ended in the hands of Indian fielders.
The pitch here also offered pronounced turn and bounce, making the job of Japanese batters that much more difficult against a set of highly-skilled bowlers.
There were a couple of run-outs too, making matters all the more complicated for the home batters, who often struggled for proper coordination while running between the wickets.