IND Women vs PAK Women, 4th Match at Mount Maunganui, Women's World Cup, Mar 06 2022 - Ball by Ball Commentary

8.45pm It turned out to be a one-sided fare in the end, but trust me, this game was on an absolute knife's edge 30 overs into India's innings. When they slumped to 114 for 6, it looked as if Pakistan could cause a huge stir. Then they saw Pooja Vastrakar and Sneh Rana put on an exhilarating century stand to set up the game, before their experienced bowlers came through to give India an emphatic win.

Jhulan and Meghna were superb upfront with the new ball, then Rajeshwari came into her own, bringing to the fore her flight and guile to take 4 for 31 to rip the heart out of the Pakistan batting. There on, there was no looking back. Diana Baig late in the order tried to play some strokes, otherwise the batting was largely poor and need to lift themselves massively to take on Australia's might on Tuesday. Thanks for joining us. Look forward to your company right through the tournament.

Mithali Raj: Relieved to have won the first game but there are a lot of things we have to work on. When you lose wickets like that, it puts pressure. Very important partnership between Pooja and Sneh got us back. Important the top order scores runs, we'll want to address that. When you have allrounders like Sneh, Pooja and Deepti, it strengthens both departments. We have a couple of days, Pooja will definitely recover and be fit for the next game."

No prizes for guessing. Pooja Vastrakar is the Player of the Match for her breezy 67. "Very happy for my first Player of the Match, that too in a World Cup game," she says. "The focus was to get the team towards 200, planned my batting with that in mind. I love batting under pressure. In domestic cricket, coaches always send me out to bat when the team is under pressure. Batters said the surface was slow, so we shouldn't aim too high."

Bismah Maroof: I think we bowled well, we were in the game but bowled loose balls. Pooja and Sneh Rana played very well, credit to them. We gave away easy runs to them, we were sloppy on the field, we didn't put them under pressure. We leaked runs in the middle, don't think I'd change anything in hindsight with regards to us wanting to bowl. Our batting has to improve, our shot selection wasn't good, we'll work on it ahead of the next game."

Sanjay : "Great comeback by Indian team from 118/6. 100 run partnership between Pooja and Sneh bringing India into the game Aggressive batting and scoring quick runs. Both didn't have any big scores prior to this match but have risen to the occasion under lot of pressure. Kudos to the girls. Indian bowling has been terrific putting Pakistan under lot of pressure. "