With a comfortable seven-wicket win against Pakistan Women, India Women continued their unbeaten streak in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017, Qualifiers. They carried the momentum from the first phase of the tournament into the Super Six Stage and have reached the final with seven wins under their belt. While Ekta Bisht set up the win with a career best performance of five for eight to bowl Pakistan out for a paltry 67; Deepti Sharma took the team to the target with an unbeaten 29-run knock. Earlier, after India elected to field in the last game of Super Six phase, pacer Shikha Pandey gave India their first breakthrough with the wicket of Nahida Khan with 17 runs on the board and in her next accounted for Javeria Khan to leave the opponents on 21 for two. An over later, Bisht trapped Ayesha Zafar lbw off her first delivery off the game to push Pakistan further on the back foot. The wicket was also her 50th scalp in ODIs. The spinners dried up the flow of runs and maintained a stranglehold on the Pakistan lineup. The left-arm spinner had Nain Abidi stumped for a duck and continued to test the batters. Eight runs later, Deepti got the better of Bismah Maroof who toiled to hold up one end of the innings before being sent back for 13. With runs hard to come by, the batters strove to keep the innings afloat. Devika Vaidya then bowled Aliya Riaz to leave the side on 52 for six. Bisht then accounted for Sana Mir, Rabiya Shah and Sadia Yousuf to leave the team on 59 for nine in the 37th over. Nashra Sandhu then struggled to keep the innings in the fray with Maham Tariq until Harmanpreet Kaur claimed the latter to end the innings.

Mona Meshram then opened the innings with Deepti, but with India on 10, she departed edging Mir to the wicketkeeper. Vaidya then added 13 runs to the total until she was sent back for three by Yousuf at the stroke of Lunch. With 45 runs needed to win, Deepti resumed India’s innings after the break with Harmanpreet Kaur. Batting with ease the pair put together 42 runs to close in on the sub-par target until the middle-order bat was sent back by Yousuf for 24. The opener then helped the team to victory with Veda Krishnamurthy.