In defence of the 247-run total against Pakistan, the Indian cricket team had a tough start on the first ball as the captain Harmanpreet Kaur wasted the DRS at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo in the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2025 match. It was a beautiful outswinger from Indian pacer Renuka Thakur, which went past the bat of the left-handed batter Muneeba Ali from Pakistan, and then, the appeal from the players led to the on-field umpire giving the not out decision.
Harmanpreet Kaur quickly made her way towards the centre of the pitch before consulting with her teammates about whether the Pakistan batter nicked it, and following that, she decided to send the decision upstairs to the third umpire. As per the snicko technology, the ball
didn’t take the outside edge of the bat through to the wicket-keeper Richa Ghosh, showcasing a clear gap between bat and ball.
Since the ball clipped the pad of Muneeba Ali, the third umpire also looked for the lbw, but it had pitched outside the leg stump on ball tracking, so the decision to take the DRS from Harmanpreet Kaur didn’t work out for India. On the third ball of the same over, Renuka Singh trapped the right-handed batter Sadaf Shamas in front of the stumps, but the Indian captain didn’t take a DRS on the lbw shout, and later on, the replays showed that there were three reds on ball tracking, which could have been her downfall.
The same thing happened when Kranti Goud trapped Muneeba Ali and Sidra Amin in front of the stumps in the fourth and sixth over of the Pakistan innings respectively. And then, in the 11th over of the Pakistan innings, Harmanpreet Kaur wasted the second and final review of India for the match on Sidra Amin, thinking that the right-handed batter was strangled down the leg side on the bowling of Renuka Singh, only for the technology to show that it was ball hitting pad.
Below are the playing XIs of India and Pakistan for ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 match:
India: Smriti Mandhana, Pratika Rawal, Harleen Deol, Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (wk), Sneh Rana, Kranti Goud, Shree Charani, Renuka Singh
Pakistan: Muneeba Ali, Sadaf Shamas, Sidra Amin, Aliya Riaz, Natalia Pervaiz, Fatima Sana (c), Rameen Shamim, Diana Baig, Sidra Nawaz (wk), Nashra Sandhu, Sadia Iqbal
