Deepti rescues India from deep trouble

When the final Sri Lankan wicket fell to a possible leg before wicket, the Indian women were temporarily forced to put their celebrations on hold, waiting patiently for the finger to go up a second time following the use of the Decision Review System. So, Harmanpreet Kaur’s side converged by the side of the Barsapara pitch, all eleven of them biding their time by huddling around the star of the evening, Deepti Sharma. A few long seconds later, the decision was confirmed, as was Deepti’s Player of the Match status, and immediately she was the cynosure of all eyes and hugs. For, chances are, without all-rounder Deepti’s services, India would have lost the opening game of the home World Cup.

Instead, a monumental performance with both bat and ball from the Agra girl ensured that hosts India didn’t just beat co-hosts Sri Lanka in the opening game of the 2025 edition, they did so convincingly (by 59 runs) despite having wholly gone off the rails during their batting innings – stuttering at 124/6 at one point after having been stuck in to bat.

The situation when India’s No.6 Deepti walked into bat on a rainy afternoon at the Barsapara Stadium was dire, to say the very least, with Sri Lanka’s Inoka Ranaweera finding herself on a hattrick. With the first ball of the 26^th over, left-arm spinner Ranaweera had the well-set Harleen Deol caught at covers. As Deol exited the field on a personal score of 48 runs, in came Jemimah Rodrigues – the fulcrum of this batting order but playing in her very first 50-over World Cup match. It lasted one ball, bowled by Ranaweera before she could get her eye in. Deepti staved off the hattrick with a single, only for the other settled batter, India’s captain Harman, to tickle an edge to wicketkeeper Anushka Sanjeewani in the same over.

While three wickets in one over was bad enough – enough to send real shockwaves through the disbelieving Indian camp – it only got significantly worse in the following over, as Richa Ghosh was caught at point for a score of two. Like that, in the space of 12 balls, India had collapsed from 120/2 to 124/6. Given the situation and the occasion, the road to recovery seemed a perilous one in wet Guwahati. But Deepti traversed it with poise, in the unexpected company of India’s No.8, fast bowler Amanjot Kaur, whose highest WODI score before Tuesday was an unbeaten 20.

Lefty Deepti dropped anchor and found the singles, rotating the strike, while righty Aman threw caution to the wind from the get-go with mighty hits. In such fashion they rebuilt India’s foundation from scratch, helped also by Sri Lanka’s fielders, who on a few occasions dropped catches at crucial stages. Both Aman and Deepti brought up their fifties in a hundred-run stand, and when Aman fell for 57, No.9 Sneh Rana blistered 28 runs with two sixes and as many fours, taking the hosts to a healthy total of 269 runs.

The Lankans seemed more than up to the task in the early stages of the chase, led ably by their captain and opener Chamari Athapaththu, so much so that even the introduction of off-spinner Deepti in the 11^th over caused no dent in the proceedings. In fact, the first ball Deepti bowled was smashed down the ground for a six by Athapaththu, a feat she repeated in Deepti’s second over too. But despite having leaked 23 runs from her first two overs, Harman persisted with Deepti for a third and the girl of the hour responded by rearranging Athapaththu’s stumps.

The Lankan captain was out for 43, which would remain the opposition's highest contribution even when the game was over. And that was largely due to Deepti once again, snuffing out starts for the sake of it during the course of her bowling spell, getting rid of batter Kavisha Dilhari for 15 and wicketkeeper Sanjeewani for six. The dismissal of the latter reduced Sri Lanka to 140/6 – having once been 82/1 – and that was pretty much the end of the visitors’ resistance. Thus, what could’ve been a nightmare beginning to a long campaign turned into a dream start for India, as well as Deepti, who completed her maiden appearance at a 50-over World Cup at home with a match-saving fifty, followed by a match-winning three-for.

Brief scores: India 269/8 in 47 overs (Amanjot Kaur 57, Deepti Sharma 53; Inoka Ranaweera 4/46) beat Sri Lanka 211 all out in 45.4 overs (Chamari Athapaththu 43, Nilakshi de Silva 35; Deepti Sharma 3/54) by 59 runs