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ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2023: Deepti Sharma Leads Charge For India With 3-15, Need 119 Runs To Win Against West Indies

Deepti Sharma shone for India claiming 100 international scalps and three against the West Indies to restrict them to 118-6.

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Deepti Sharma celebrates the wicket of Campbelle with teammates in Cape Town on Wednesday.
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After Hayley Matthews won the toss and elected to bat, saying they would like to put some runs on the board, Harmanpreet Kaur expressed similar intentions.

Kaur, though, must have felt relieved seeing Pooja Vastrakar, bowling with the new ball for a change, landing the first blow dismissing captain Matthews (2) off her first delivery, and finishing it off with a wicket-maiden.

Renuka Singh provided the assist bowling economic opening spells, which built pressure on the batters.

Shemaine Campbelle looked to ease the pressure by rotating the strike, a move that resulted in cheeky runs, and a couple of missed run-out opportunities on India's part.

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Left-arm spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad was brought inside the powerplay, a move that did not immediately pay off, as she ended up conceding 12 runs on her first over. Appropriately, Kaur introduced the more experienced Deepti Sharma at the other end to put pressure on the batters.

Gayakwad was immediately replaced with Shafali Verma to stop the flow of runs. With Deepti applying pressure at the other end, Taylor found a welcome boundary down to fine-leg.

Radha Yadav, who was brought in to bowl the 9th over, conceded 8 runs. Gayakwad made good use of her second over conceding five runs, leaving West Indies at 53-1 after 10 overs.

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Taylor and Campbelle brought up their 50-run partnership on the second ball after powerplay, which was followed by an exquisite aerial cover drive from the former batter off Renuka.

Taylor, then, turned up the heat on Gayakwad giving the ball elevation by getting under it and hitting it over covers for a boundary.

With West Indies batters showing intent, India finally got the breakthrough in the form of Campbelle's (30) wicket, who tried a reverse sweep off Deepti but managed only a top edge to Smriti Mandhana. The off-spinner followed it up with the wicket of Taylor (42) off the last ball of the same over.

Deepti Sharma, thus, became India's leading wicket-taker in T20Is overtaking seamer Poonam Yadav.

Chinelle Henry (2) got run out in consecutive matches when she tried a second run off a misfield, only to be left stranded with her bat in the air. The West Indies collapse saw 3 wickets falling in six balls.

India saw another slip in the field when Deepti dropped Chedean Nation running in from long-off off the bowling of Gayakwad, who would have liked the scalp to revive a mediocre bowling display.

Renuka managed to get a wicket off the last ball of her four overs bowling out Shabika Ghajnabi (15).

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Deepti claimed her 100th T20I wicket, the first Indian bowler to do so, after bowling Afy Fletcher for a first-ball duck. Yuzvendra Chahal is the leading wicket-taker for India in men's cricket with 91 wickets.

India bowlers, though restricting West Indies to 118-6, failed to strike the death blow in their second consecutive match.

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