World Cup: Spinners, Yastika Help India Beat Bangladesh By 110 Runs

Yastika Bhatia's timely half-century followed by a spin choke helped India defeat Bangladesh by 110 runs and keep up in the race to the semi-finals of the World Cup 2022. 

Chasing 230, India deployed spin from the second over itself and didn't let the Bangladeshi batters make use of the powerplay freely. Rajeshwari Gayakwad provided the first wicket in the fifth over with the score reading 12. 

Pooja Vastrakar got the second wicket in the powerplay in the form of Fargana Hoque as Bangladesh could only score 19 runs in the first ten overs. 

Sneh Rana, Rajeshwari, and Poonam Yadav made life difficult for the batters as the required run-rate kept going up and the wickets going down. The highest partnership for Bangladesh was between Salma Khatun and Lata Mondal which lasted 62 balls and the duo added 40 runs from it. But it wasn't enough for Bangladesh to come even close to the Indian target. 

Sneh Rana ended up picking four wickets, Jhulan Goswami and Pooja Vastrakar got two, and Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Poonam Yadav took one wicket each. 

With this win, India now move to third place in the World Cup points table. 

Earlier, Yastika Bhatia scored a half-century to help India reach 229/7 in the first innings. Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma gave India a terrific start. Mandhana scored 30 while Shafali hit 42 but India lost them both and Mithali Raj within a space of five balls. 

It was Yastika who anchored India's innings with some healthy contributions from Richa Ghosh, Pooja Vastrakar, and Sneh to the team get to a competitive total. 

Brief Scorecard: 

India - 229/7 
Bangladesh - 119/10 in 40.3 overs