Senior Women's T20 Challenger Trophy: Yastika Bhatia goes berserk in final, powers India D to championship win

The finals of the Senior Women's T20 Challenger Trophy saw Poonam Yadav-led India A square off against Sneh Rana-led India D at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur. Both teams gave tough competition throughout the tournament before making it to the summit clash, leaving behind India B and India C.

The game started with India D winning the toss and opting to field first. Seamer Renuka Singh handed the rivals a major blow in the very first over by dismissing Shivali Shinde, India A’s opening batter. Renuka returned again to bowl the fifth over and claimed another wicket as she sent the top-order batter Disha Kasat packing.

It was then the partnership between opening batter Nuzhat Parween and all-rounder Harleen Deol that helped India A overcome the early wickets and put up a defendable total. The two shared a 105-run partnership for the third wicket before Parween was dismissed off Renuka’s delivery, scoring a composed fifty off 43 deliveries.

Rajeshwari Gayakwad bowled a fantastic final over and picked up two wickets, thereby restricting the opposition batters from going big in the end. As a result, India A finished scoring a defendable 144/5. Apart from Gayakwad, only Renuka Singh managed to scalp wickets as she ended with three wickets to her name.

Yastika Bhatia dominates the show

Yastika Bhatia and Jasia Akhter started the chase for India D. India A bowlers looked confident, but they could not restrict the duo from scoring runs. Bhatia and Akhter sailed through the first 10 overs and went on to share a 70-run opening stand, with the latter doing most of the scoring work. After Akhter’s wicket, Bhatia got going and piled up runs at a faster pace.

Jemimah Rodrigues, who joined her after the first wicket, could not make an impact in the game and ended up losing her wicket cheaply. Dayalan Hemalatha, who joined Bhatia on the crease next, also failed to go big and was dismissed early. But Yastika Bhatia kept going and scored a major chunk of runs during the chase, with wicketkeeper-batter Sushma Verma assisting her in building a composed partnership for the fourth wicket.

Yastika Bhatia stole the show and put up a terrific performance on display. She notched up 80 runs off 56 deliveries, including 12 fours and a six, and remained unbeaten till the end of the chase to clinch a title win for India D. After starting off slow, she went berserk and kept finding gaps at regular intervals so as to cut the chase short. She hit a brilliant boundary in the penultimate over to finish off the chase in style as India D bagged a massive seven-wicket win.