Jemimah Rodrigues enters record books as she becomes the youngest player to score a half-century in women's T20 Asia Cup

Indian star batter Jemimah Rodrigues lit up the opening encounter in the Asia Cup with her stupendous knock of 76 off 53 balls. Rodrigues helped India reach a total of 150 in 20 overs as they successfully defended the target winning the match by 41 runs. The 22-year-old also entered the record books during the course of her innings.

The middle-order batter became the youngest player to score a half-century in the women’s T20 Asia Cup surpassing Bangladesh's Fargana Hoque’s (25 yrs 79 days) record against India in 2018. Rodrigues returned to form on her comeback from an injury that had kept her out of competitive action for a couple of months.

The youngster’s knock was studded with 11 boundaries and a six for her as she looked as fluent as she had been before her injury break. This was also her highest score in T20I.  The young batter was ruled out of India's limited-overs series in England due to a hand injury she had picked up after the Commonwealth Games campaign.

Coming back to the match, Indian women were put in to bat after Sri Lanka won the toss. They got off to a miserable start losing their in-form openers Smriti Mandhana (6) and Shafali Verma (10) in the powerplay.

However, Jemimah and captain Harmanpreet Kaur stitched a 92-run stand for the 3rd wicket that propelled India towards a more-than-competitive total. India managed just 35 runs in the last 4 overs but Harmanpreet and Jemimah's partnership did the job for them.

Indian captain showered praise on her scintillating knock after the match ended. "After losing two wickets when I went to bat, Jemi played well and we strung a good partnership. She worked well in the NCA and were happy to see her play well. I do feel we were short by 10-20 runs. If Jemi and I continued, we could have closed in on 200. But this is a learning process," Harmanpreet Kaur said.

India will now take on Malaysia in their next group stage match on Monday before taking on the UAE on Tuesday.