Shafali Verma scored an unbeaten 100 off 49 balls, with nine sixes, as India Women beat Bangladesh by 114 runs in the Asian Games semifinal, reaching the final against Sri Lanka.
Two days earlier, Shafali had hit 40 off 15 balls to finish a 58-run chase in five overs against Japan. The pattern across both innings is the same: an aggressive opener who turns a big stage into a chance to accelerate rather than consolidate.
That is a specific skill, not just power. A T20 opener who can score at more than two runs a ball has to keep picking the right delivery to attack while accepting that some will go wrong, and the team’s total is built around that willingness.
It also depends on the platform around her. Harmanpreet Kaur’s 40 and Smriti Mandhana’s 37 gave India 195 for 4, and the bowlers then dismissed Bangladesh for 81, so a single big innings sat inside a balanced team performance.
The general point is that big individual performances tend to happen in teams that have structured roles well enough for a player to take risks safely.
India will meet Sri Lanka in the gold medal match on Tuesday, September 22, while Bangladesh will play Pakistan for bronze.
The win guarantees India at least a silver medal at the Asian Games.
India, the defending champions, won gold in women’s cricket at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games.
Earlier in the tournament, India beat Japan by eight wickets in the quarterfinal after bowling them out for 57.
In the quarterfinal, Shafali had hit 40 off 15 balls as India chased 58 in five overs.
The two sides had also met in the Women’s Asia Cup semifinal earlier in September, which India won by 40 runs.
The semifinal was played on Sunday, September 20, 2026, at 10:30 am IST.
Shafali Verma (file photo, 2020), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0