“It was difficult to be on the other end, but as a spectacle it was outstanding.” – Arlene Kelly on Muneeba Ali’s 102.
Telford Vice / Newlands
FOR most of their T20 women’s World Cup match at Newlands on Wednesday, West Indies and India seemed intent on proving a point in the game’s ongoing trudge towards gender equality: that women are as capable as men of playing dull cricket.
A sluggish pitch didn’t help, but that couldn’t explain the West Indians’ ooze to 118/6 in the face of disciplined although not overtly threatening bowling. Nor the Indians taking all of 18.1 overs to somnambulate to victory by six wickets.
The strike rates of half the 14 batters who took guard did not escape double figures. Only Shafali Verma, Smitri Mandhana and Richa Ghosh struck at higher than 120. No-one reached 145. Harmanpreet Kaur and Ghosh put on 72 off 65.
Deepti Sharma dismissed Shemaine Campbelle and Stafanie Taylor in four deliveries on her way to a haul of 3/15, which made her the first woman to take 100 T20I wickets for India. Karishma Ramharack’s 2/14 featured the wickets of Mandhana and Verma. Ghosh took India home with a 32-ball 44 not out. Taylor and Campbelle shared 73 off 74.
And that was about that. Had anything like a crowd been around they might have asked to be woken when it was over. Instead the ground was sparsely sprinkled, perhaps because the Cape Doctor — a strong south-easterly wind, so named because it is thought to rid the city of pollution and pestilence — blew hard enough to make Table Mountain vanish under a thick blanket of cloud.
Maybe this is churlish. India are one of only four unbeaten sides in the tournament after matches and firmly in position for a place in the semi-finals. So they earned a good, solid, boring win on Wednesday. So what?
“Our main focus was just to go and play according to what the ball was doing,” Harmanpreet said. “I know as a T20 cricketer, we always want to play aggressive cricket. But sometimes playing sensible cricket is more important than showing what you can do. That’s what we did today. Staying there is more important than showing aggression every time. The way [No. 5] Richa batted shows us how much strength we have in our batting. We need to spend some time and execute.”
Harmanpreet practised what she preached, taking 42 balls to make 33: “I didn’t show any hurry because it was a chaseable total for our batting line-up. And I had that self-belief that I could spend some time, and I knew we had a batter [Ghosh] who could execute. I knew Richa was in good touch. My job was to score a single and give her the strike.
“We are not worried very much about the result. We only want to go and execute, and we are going into every match thinking about that.”
There was excitement of the wrong kind after eight overs of India’s reply, when Taylor fell prone after routinely fielding and throwing a ball at short fine leg. She was stretchered off, apparently suffering from a back spasm. Taylor didn’t play in any of the Windies’ 17 T20Is between July 2021 and Saturday because of a back injury, and her departure in dramatic fashion on Wednesday was alarming. Late on Wednesday night, no update on her condition was available from the West Indian camp.
There was finally something to cheer in the second match of the evening. Muneeba Ali’s 68-ball 102 set up Pakistan’s 165/5, the second-biggest total in the 10 matches played in the tournament. Muneeba, bespectacled, slight and precise, scored crisply all around the wicket — 55 on the on side, 47 on the off — and unleashed especially mean drives over extra cover. She hit neither of Pakistan’s sixes but 14 of their 16 fours, and had the energy to run 46 of her runs. Charitably, the Irish bowled both sides of the wicket too often. But those runs still had to be hit.
It was an impressively accomplished performance by a player who, in her previous 42 T20I innings, had a top score of 43 — her only foray into the 40s. Now she is Pakistan’s only female century-maker in the format, and an example to the Indians and West Indians who came before her for how to survive and prosper in conditions like these.
Her batting done, Muneeba settled down behind the stumps, taking a catch and a stumping and keeping immaculately, and helping her team bowl out Ireland for 95. She was on the field for all but six of the 219 balls that constituted the match.
Considering only 11 of her first 42 innings had been on the faster pitches of Australia, England, Ireland and South Africa, how had Muneeba managed to more than double her best effort? Although she didn’t quite answer the question, her reply was priceless: “I don’t know, but these days don’t come very often. We don’t get these chances in international cricket regularly. I cherish this moment.”
She reached her hundred in the 19th over with a slapped drive into the covers that went through Cara Murray and kept going for four. Muneeba had help in a stand of 101 off 67 with Nida Dar, and from the sidelines: “Between the 12th and 15th overs I thought I could get a century because there were enough overs and I had enough runs. My teammates were telling me to go for it because you don’t get opportunities like this very often.”
Even the Irish, who are among four teams who have lost both their matches, could appreciate what Muneeba had achieved. “It was difficult to be on the other end, but as a spectacle it was outstanding,” Arlene Kelly said.
Batting like Muneeba’s is riveting to watch, regardless of the gender of the batter. But another, troubling, sign that the gap between women’s and men’s cricket is narrowing is the implication of Shohely Akhter and Lata Mondal in a scandal over fixing. Shohely claims, in an interview with Cricbuzz, that the affair is a result of miscommunication and Mondal says she has reported the matter to the authorities. But the mere fact that women’s cricket and corruption are being mentioned in the same conversation tells us this side of the game is being taken seriously by people who have, and who want, money.
Money or Muneeba? Which would you prefer? If teams strive to give of their best, to play with aggression and creativity and to do more than just enough to win sensibly, that’s no contest.
Cricbuzz
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