Cape Town: India women defeated Pakistan women by seven wickets to get their Women’s T20 World Cup campaign off to a winning start. Chasing a target of 150, India were in a spot of bother at 93/3 in the 14th over, however, a brilliant partnership of 58 between Richa Ghosh ( 31 off 20) and Jemimah Rodrigues ( 53 off 38 ) pulled off a stellar win for India. Earlier, Pakistan won the toss and opted to bat on a good batting surface. However, they couldn’t get the start they needed as Javeria Khan (8) departed quickly. She was caught by Harmanpreet Kaur off the bowling of Deepti Sharma. Bismah Maroof and Mubeena Ali (12) then stitched a good partnership and took Pakistan’s score to 42 before Ali was stumped off the bowling off Radha Yadav. Nida Dar then was caught behind for a duck against Pooja Vastrakar. She was not given out initially but the umpire had to reverse the call after a brilliant DRS call. Maroof was steady at the wicket and kept on stitching crucial partnership. She added 25 runs with Sidra Ameen and 81 off 47 with Ayesha Naseem, who provided the much needed momentum to the innings with a fiery 43 off 25 .
