KURUNEGEALA, May 5: Rumeli Dhar slammed a career-best 92 and the bowlers backed her up with a superb performance as India crushed Pakistan by 182 runs in the Women’s Asia Cup here on Monday.

This was India’s third successive win in the tournament while Pakistan have lost all three of their games.

After choosing to bat, India lost two early wickets but recovered through a 50-run stand between Asha Rawat (69) and Priyanka Roy and then moved into a position of strength as Dhar and Rawat put on 89 runs.

Rawat remained unbeaten scoring at nearly a run a ball and with the help of some lower-order hitting from Amita Sharma and Jhulan Goswami took India to 275 – the highest total of the tournament.

The Pakistan batting never got going and they lost their openers with the score on five. Only two of their batsmen got into double digits as they laboured to 93 in their quota of overs with even that meagre total reached with the assistance of 33 extras.

Three of the Indian bowlers sent down their ten overs with an economy-rate below one and Gouher Sultana bagged the Man-of-the Match award on debut with figures of 10-7-9-3.

Scoreboard

INDIA:

K.V. Jain c Urooj b Asmavia 12

J. Sharma b Qanita 0

A. Rawat run out 69

P. Roy run out 31

R. Dhar not out 92

D. Palshikar c Qanita b Asmavia 13

A. Sharma b Sana Mir 21

M. Raj lbw b Sana Mir 8

J. Goswami not out 10

EXTRAS (LB-1, W-18) 19

TOTAL (for seven wkts, 50 overs) 275

FALL OF WKTS: 1-3, 2-25, 3-75, 4-164, 5-203, 6-231, 7-252.

DID NOT BAT: N. David, G. Sultana.

BOWLING: Asmavia Iqbal 10-1-1-37-2 (2w); Qanita Jalil 6-0-43-1 (3w); Sajjida Shah 8-1-29-0 (1w); Almas Akram 5-0-31-0; Sana Mir 10-0-50-2 (9w); Sadia Yousuf 5-0-28-0 (1w); Urooj Mumtaz 6-0-56-0 (2w).

PAKISTAN:

Tasqeen Qadeer lbw b A. Sharma 2

Bismah Maroof lbw b Goswami 1

Sajjida Shah c Rawat b Dhar 16

Urooj Mumtaz lbw b A. Sharma 5

Almas Akram c Raj b David 4

Sana Javed c J Sharma b David 10

Sana Mir c and b Sultana 1

Batool Fatima c David b Sultana 5

Asmavia Iqbal not out 8

Qanita Jalil c and b Sultana 8

Sadia Yousuf not out 0

EXTRAS (B-8, LB-1, NB-2, W-17, PR-5) 33

TOTAL (for nine wkts, 50 overs) 93

FALL OF WKTS: 1-5, 2-5, 3-15, 4-34, 5-52, 6-53, 7-59, 8-64, 9-87.

BOWLING: Goswami 10-3-30-1 (2nb, 3w); A. Sharma 10-6-8-2; Dhar 4-1-20-1 (4w); David 10-6-6-2 (2w); Sultana 10-7-9-3; Palshikar 3-1-6-0; Roy 3-3-0-0.

RESULT: India won by 182 runs.—Agencies