Shafali Verma’s 49-ball 100 takes India to gold medal clash in Asian Games

By Sohail Khan 20 September 2026, 4:27 pm

Suchika Tariyal, India’s first mixed martial arts participant at the Asian Games, defeated Mongolia’s Altanchimeg Baigalmaa to secure the nation’s maiden Asiad medal in the discipline. At the Inae Sports Centre, she had set in motion a cascade of records for Indians on Sunday. Hours later, some 25 kilometres to the northeast at the Korogi Sports Park, her cricketing compatriots would carry the baton onward — one of them being from her city.

The Indian women’s cricket team, in defence of their gold medal, have secured a place in the final with a complete demolition of Bangladesh. Opting to bat first, India scored 195/4, while their opponents could only muster 81 runs in response, securing a 114-run victory — India’s biggest ever, in terms of runs, against a full-member nation in women’s T20Is.

The first record to tumble belonged to Suzie Bates. She had not found company at the summit of women’s T20I’s run-scoring charts, but no longer — Smriti Mandhana eclipsed her with a 19-ball 37. In doing so, she struck two sixes, becoming the first Indian to reach triple figures in sixes in women’s T20Is.

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Yet, even that record would be eclipsed within minutes. Shafali Verma went berserk Bangladesh in a semi-final once more, as she had done just 10 days earlier at the Women’s Asia Cup. This time, though, there was no reprieve on offer. The opener carved out an unbeaten 49-ball 100, nine of those deliveries sailing beyond the ropes, taking her tally of sixes in this format to 104.

That, though, was not the only record that would belong to Shafali after Sunday’s knock. She became the first woman to score a century at the Asian Games, the first female Indian cricketer to hit nine sixes in a T20I innings against a full-member nation, and the first cricketer to score a women’s T20I hundred against Bangladesh. She now also holds the most women’s T20I sixes in a single calendar year (35).

Shafali’s innings left scant room for speculation about the outcome, but captain Harmanpreet Kaur played a steady hand of 33-ball 40. The pair now occupy the top two places on the list of T20I run-scorers against Bangladesh — Harmanpreet with 560, Shafali with 482.

After a meek submission against a familiar nemesis in the first innings, Bangladesh followed the same script in the second. Deepti Sharma, who had engineered Bangladesh’s batting collapse at the Asia Cup with a three-wicket haul, posed another set of questions that Nigar Sultana Joty’s batters could only admire, but never answer.

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With three wickets for seven runs, She now sits joint-second among the leading T20I wicket-takers against Bangladesh. Nandani Sharma also took three, though at a cost 18 runs dearer. More gratifying to the team management than any individual accolade, however, will be that every bowler who had the opportunity of rolling their arms ensured that they left with a wicket to their name.

In Tuesday’s final, India will face Sri Lanka, who made light work of a 178-run target on the strength of captain Chamari Athapaththu’s unbeaten 83. India have won all but one of their last 12 T20Is against the Lankans. That lone defeat, however, came in strikingly similar circumstances — another final, of the 2024 Asia Cup, where an Indian defeat seemed improbable.

But Tuesday’s bridge can be crossed when the team reaches it. Sunday, meanwhile, belonged to two daughters of Rohtak, Haryana.

Brief scores: India 195/4 in 20 overs (Shafali Verma 100 n.o.; Shanjida Akter Meghla 1/25) beat Bangladesh 81 all out in 15.4 overs (Dilara Akter 27; Deepti Sharma 3/7) by 114 runs.

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