Harmanpreet Kaur-led Indian side began their run-chase with the scoreboard reading 10/0 against Pakistan in their Group B fixture of the ICC Women’s World T20 2018 on Sunday.
According to the rules of the sport, irrespective of the format, an umpire may award one of the team’s five bonus runs if he/she feels the opposition is needlessly wasting time. This is designed to maintain the flow and pace of the match.
During Pakistan’s innings, batters were first warned in the 13th over but they repeated incident twice. Firstly in the 18th over when Bismah Maroof and Nida Dar were at the crease, and then on the final ball of the innings when Nahida Khan and Sidra Nawaz were found guilty of doing the same. Pakistan’s eventual total was also reduced to 133/5 from 135/5.
https://twitter.com/NaaginDance/status/1061914194981773312
After the completion of the match, Pakistan’s skipper Javeria Khan accepted the players’ mistake and also revealed that this is not the first time that such a thing has happened with this team.
“I had a chat with the umpires, they told me that our players were warned thrice and then the runs were docked. It was unprofessional on our part, after being warned, we continued to trod on the danger area. It’s something we need to work on. It hasn’t happened for the first time, it happened previously during the Sri Lanka series as well,” she confessed.
Meanwhile, Mithali Raj and Smriti Mandhana provided a great start to the Indian team in the chase, sharing 73 runs for the first wicket in 9.3 overs. After Mandhana’s dismissal, Jemimah Rodrigues (16) got a start but couldn’t convert it into a big one.
After scoring 56 runs off 47 balls, Mithali got out in 18th over. Harmanpreet and Veda Krishnamurthy sailed Women in Blue past the winning total on the final delivery of the 19th over.
