“It was one of those days when I was in the zone,” said India captain Harmanpreet Kaur after smashing her fastest fifty in T20 Internationals in Dubai on Wednesday. Harmanpreet, who has been battling inconsistency, was at her belligerent best against Sri Lanka in a Women’s T20 World Cup match. She completed her half-century off 27 balls and on the last delivery of India’s innings. Her previous fastest fifty — off 29 balls — also came against Sri Lanka back in 2018.

India won the game by 82 runs after posting 172 for three, the highest total of the World Cup thus far.

“It was one of those days where I was in my zone, I was thinking positively and hitting anything that was in my zone. These wickets aren’t very true for batting.

“You have to keep rotating strike and only when the ball is in the zone can you swing your bat,” the India captain said post the big win.

The 98-run stand between Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma laid the platform for a big total.

“We just wanted to go with the momentum. Smriti and Shafali gave us a very good start. We discussed that, we didn’t want to throw our wickets away. That’s exactly what the openers did and gave us that platform.

“Jemi and I just wanted to get 7-8 runs an over, and we just went with the flow,” added Harmanpreet, who was back to batting at number three after coming in at four against Pakistan. 

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