On This Day: 18-year-old Titas Sadhu helped India to win Asian Games gold medal defeating Sri Lanka

Two years back, on September 25, 2023, the India women's team was crowned as the champion of the Asian Games Women's Cricket Competition. In a low-scoring final match, Sri Lanka got to score only 97 for 8 in their chase, thanks to 18-year-old Titas Sadhu, who took 3 for 6 in her 4-over spell, including a maiden over.

The match was held at Hangzhou, China, and was expected to be a high-scoring match, but it turned out to be a low-scoring encounter between two Asian cricket powerhouses. Ahead of the match, India was the favorite to win, and they did it. The girls in blue glorified Indian cricket again. Before the second innings, it was Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues who put on a respectable fight against the Sri Lankan bowlers.

Apart from Smriti's 46-run and Jemimah's 42-run knocks, no other India batter was able to collect two-digit scores, which was disappointing, with 6 batters restricted to one-digit scores. India Women, in 20 overs, scored 116 runs for 7 wickets. Because of a low target, Sri Lanka perhaps went into the crease in the second innings with overconfidence.

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Titas Sadhu became the wrecker-in-chief for India in the final

From the third over of the second innings, the island nation team started to lose their wickets at regular intervals. Sadhu took the openers and number three batter of the Sri Lanka women's team to dismantle their batting unit. With Rajeshwari Gayakwad, who got two scalps, and support from other bowlers, India was able to defend the subpar target—a brilliant piece of teamwork. The Sri Lanka women's team in 20 overs got only 97 runs and allowed India to clinch the title.

After the heartbreak at the Commonwealth Games and the T20 World Cup semi-final defeat, the Indian women's cricket team had finally won a major competition, which allowed some fresh air into the camp.