Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma: Destructive pair leads India to first Asiad gold

By Sohail Khan 22 September 2026, 5:53 pm

Ask who has worn the crown of best opening pair, and the answers scatter in every direction. “Best”, after all, is a subjective term, and cricket’s own architecture — split neatly by formats — allows myriad choices.

In T20Is, though, there is little room for debate. At the summit, stands Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma. Their 99-run opening stand set the template for India’s 147-run demolition of Sri Lanka, and with it, the nation’s first gold medal at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

Sri Lanka, in their last couple of T20Is against India, have had to face the wrath of the opening pair that has scored the most runs in this format. A 162-run partnership in December last year, and more recently, a 129-run stand in the final of the Women’s Asia Cup.

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If they were to have any real stake in proceedings at Korogi Sports Park on Tuesday, they needed to be third time lucky. They were not.

Consecutive sixes off left-arm spinner Sugandika Kumari in the third over — a match-up that made precious little sense from Chamari Athapaththu’s end of the equation — announced Mandhana’s intent in the simplest of terms.

Chamari went with pace in the next over, entrusting Mithali Ayodha with the task of breaking the partnership, but the teenager did not have any answers against the leading run-scorer of women’s T20Is.

There was, in essence, a reversal of roles from the meeting in Dubai nine days prior. While Shafali had lit the fuse in the Asia Cup final, Mandhana sparked the onslaught on Tuesday — the pair’s telepathic ability to seamlessly trade roles in the aggressor-anchor set-up being among the many reasons responsible for their dominance.

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With her opening bowlers offering little resistance, Chamari eventually took the ball herself in the fifth over, standing directly in the firing line. Minutes later, she would regret her action, for the over yielded fire aplenty. Three sixes — two off Shafali’s bat, and the other off Mandhana’s.

The powerplay produced 67 runs — only two shy of what Sri Lanka would eventually muster — while the ease of fielding restrictions did not necessarily translate to an ease of carnage by the Indian openers. Mandhana recorded her 37th T20I half-century in the final — yet another exhibit in her growing case file as a player for the big occasions.

Notably, was her fifth fifty in an eleventh T20I final appearance, and also the third consecutive, having recorded half-centuries in the previous two Asia Cup finals. Her average and strike rate in finals — 39.1 and 136.23 — sit comfortably above her respective career figures of 31 and 127.47.

In that same over, however, Chamundi Praboda denied what would have been the seventh triple-figure T20I partnership by the pair, and the 22nd T20I half-century for Shafali. In an attempt to reverse sweep the left-arm spinner, Shafali holed out to backward point.

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Captain Harmanpreet Kaur’s stay was brief, in which she scored a 17-ball 19. Richa Ghosh, however, conjured the kind of knock that first announced her as indispensable to this side. The wicketkeeper-batter scored 49 runs off 22 deliveries, 40 of those coming from boundaries, in what was the first instance of her scoring north of 40 since December 2024.

The score India had accumulated — 216/3 — happens to be their highest-ever away from home. The next hour or so was, hence, academic. As if she had not inflicted enough damage on the Lankans with the bat, Shafali starred with the ball as well, dismissing Imesha Dulani and Hasini Perera inside the powerplay.

Moments later, Deepti Sharma accounted for the one Lankan batter capable of mounting any real resistance — Chamari Athapaththu. What unfolded thereafter could be described by various metaphors, perhaps the most suitable being crumbling like a house of cards — seven wickets in a span of 26 runs. A gold medal aside, it also marked India’s biggest victory in terms of runs in women’s T20Is.

At the heart of it all sat a pair now utterly alone at the summit of the format. Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana have amassed 4,080 T20I runs together as an opening partnership. To contextualise their supremacy — not a single pair has been able to breach even 3000. Neither among women, nor among men.

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Brief Scores: India 216/3 in 20 overs (Smriti Mandhana 79; Chamudi Praboda 1/34) beat Sri Lanka 69 all out in 15.4 overs (Chamari Athapaththu 29; Deepti Sharma 3/6) by 147 runs.