Anjana Sasi | Reporting from Aichi-Nagoya, Japan
Nagoya: India had been waiting for gold. It finally arrived through cricket. At Korogi Sports Park on Tuesday, the Indian women’s cricket team defeated Sri Lanka by 147 runs in the final to give the country its first gold medal of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
The victory changed the complexion of India’s campaign, which until then had been built around silver and bronze. India moved to seven medals — one gold, four silver and two bronze — with shooting accounting for five, mixed martial arts (MMA) for one and cricket providing the breakthrough at the top of the podium.
The cricket gold mattered for another reason. Sri Lanka were the same opponents India had defeated in the Women’s Asia Cup final just over a week earlier. India once again handled the occasion with authority. After posting 216/3, built around Smriti Mandhana’s 79, Shafali Verma’s 48 and Richa Ghosh’s unbeaten 49 from 22 balls, India bowled Sri Lanka out for 69.
Their route to the final had been equally convincing — an eight-wicket victory over Japan followed by a 114-run semifinal win over Bangladesh. Sri Lanka provided the final test. India never allowed the contest to drift from its control.
Shooting Carried the Early Burden
The gold was especially significant in the wider context of India’s campaign because shooting had carried almost the entire medal burden during the opening days. Elavenil Valarivan began with two silver medals — one alongside Sonam Maskar and Vidarsa K Vinod in the women’s 10m air rifle team event and another in the individual final.
Her individual silver was decided by just 0.6 points, with Valarivan scoring 252.4 behind Japan’s Hinata Taichi, who finished with 253.0. The men then added another team silver through Himanshu Dhillon, Rudrankksh Patil and Parth Mane. Dhillon followed that with individual silver, while Patil took bronze, taking shooting’s contribution to five medals.
The consistency demonstrated the depth of India’s rifle programme, although the top step of the podium remained elusive. Elavenil and Parth also came close in Tuesday’s 10m air rifle mixed team event, qualifying strongly before finishing fourth in the final. Cricket therefore did something shooting had not yet managed. It delivered gold.
Also Read: Elavenil’s Double Silver Opens India’s Medal Account as Aichi-Nagoya Campaign Gathers Pace
MMA Opens a New Route
Suchika Tariyal’s bronze in mixed martial arts opened another medal pathway. It was India’s first Asian Games medal in the sport, but her semifinal against Singapore’s Teo Hui Hoon ended in unusual circumstances.
After the Indian camp challenged the initial decision, the contest was ultimately treated as tied, with Teo progressing under the competition’s weight-based tiebreak rule because she had weighed around 700 grams less at the morning weigh-in.
Quimcy Dsouza also came painfully close to extending India’s medal spread in teqball, losing the women’s singles bronze-medal contest against Japan’s Yuina Sakamoto by 11-12 in both games. Such results underline how narrow the margins can become in disciplines where India is still developing its competitive base.
Badminton Adds Another Assured Medal
Tuesday also broadened India’s medal possibilities beyond the events already on the official tally. The men’s badminton team produced an impressive 3-0 quarterfinal victory over hosts Japan to reach the semifinals, assuring India of at least a bronze medal.
Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, and Ayush Shetty delivered the three victories that carried India through. The women’s campaign, however, ended in the quarterfinals with a 1-3 defeat against Japan. That contrast captured another feature of India’s Asian Games campaign: progress in one event can arrive alongside disappointment in another, sometimes within hours.
Wushu and Hockey Add Momentum
Wushu also produced another guaranteed medal, with Roshibina Devi progressing far enough in the women’s sanda competition to assure India of a place on the podium. The men’s hockey team, meanwhile, continued its emphatic start by defeating Sri Lanka 16-1 after opening the competition with a 13-1 victory over Indonesia.
Jugraj Singh scored four times against Sri Lanka, while Abhishek and Dilpreet Singh completed hat-tricks. The margins are enormous for now. The more revealing tests will come when India meets stronger opposition.
Wednesday Opens Another Phase
The next phase begins almost immediately. Shooting will again be central on Wednesday, with Manu Bhaker, Esha Singh and Suruchi Singh entered in the women’s 10m air pistol competition. The men’s and women’s skeet programmes also move towards their medal rounds.
Athletics begins on Wednesday with the men’s and women’s half marathon race walks, before the main track-and-field programme gathers pace. Rowing is also scheduled to begin after its programme was disrupted by a typhoon warning, adding another sport in which India has traditionally carried medal expectations at the Asian Games.
The men’s badminton team will attempt to turn its assured medal into something more substantial in the semifinal, while hockey, kabaddi, boxing, shooting and several other disciplines continue to move towards their decisive stages. That is why the cricket gold matters at this point.
It has removed the pressure of waiting for India’s first victory at the top of the podium. More importantly, it means the campaign is no longer defined almost entirely by what happens at the shooting range.
From Breakthrough to Momentum
India has seven medals on the official tally, but the number alone does not tell the whole story. The opening phase has produced strong performances, narrow misses, an unusual MMA tiebreak, an assured badminton medal, another medal guaranteed in wushu and encouraging progress across several team sports.
Now there is a gold medal to change the mood. Cricket has crossed the threshold. The challenge for India is to turn that breakthrough into momentum and make the second phase of the Asian Games a broader medal story — one in which responsibility for the tally is shared across disciplines rather than resting on the shoulders of a few.
Disclosure: Anjana Sasi’s travel for TheNews21’s Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games coverage has been supported by a private individual who has requested anonymity. The supporter has no role in TheNews21’s editorial decisions or coverage.
