The opening act of the 2025 Women's World Cup was made by an unexpected name: Sri Lanka's Inoka Ranaweera. At the venue, Naman Agarwal writes on the collapse sparked by the left-arm spinner, which set the tone for the World Cup.
India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, wearing a cap, strode out to the crease with the stadium DJ blaring AR Rahman's Academy Award winning Jai Ho. There was a spring in the step of the home captain that matched the energy of the song. The last time she had appeared an ODI World Cup match at home, it was a seventh-place play-off against Pakistan, in a tournament India would want to forget. Twelve years on, she was walking out to a large crowd in the tournament opener, with many calling it the best chance yet to lift the trophy.
The first two-and-a-half hours were hardly the World Cup opener the home fans wanted. Smriti Mandhana, one of the biggest crowd pullers, was dismissed off 40-year-old seamer Udeshika Prabodhani in the fourth over itself. To make matters worse, the heavens opened up 10 overs in after a sweltering few days in Guwahati, causing a rain delay of nearly 90 minutes.
Also read: Beyond just Mandhana: India head into the World Cup with a complete batting line-up
But, Harleen Deol and Pratika Rawal rebuilt and laid the platform for Kaur to come in with the score 81-2 in 19.2 overs. And Kaur started with intent. The trademark paddle sweep was out first ball, followed by a crisp punch to the covers for a single.
Without hitting a shot in anger, she raced to 21 off 18 balls by the end of the 25th over. Deol, who had done well to settle in after Mandhana’s wicket, was now starting to up the pace, too. Her back-to-back boundaries off Chamari Athapaththu in the 25th over took India to 120-2, with the run rate spiking from under four to 4.80 in quick time. And then disaster struck.
Inoka Ranaweera has been around for well over a decade. She was in the XI when Sri Lanka beat India in the 2013 World Cup in Mumbai. Not many present at the venue today would have known that, until she ran through the cream of the India batting in the space of five balls.
Deol, looking good on 48 off 63, got a ball that stopped enough on the surface to induce an uncontrolled drive straight to cover. Not the best time for the set batter to fall, but India had just the player to capitalise on the middle overs against spin – Jemimah Rodrigues – until they didn’t. Deol’s dismissal might have looked like a soft one, but there was nothing soft about Rodrigues’. Angled in from wide of the stumps, pitched on middle, beating the outside edge and hitting off. The India No.5 was done by a beauty as the Guwahati crowd let out a collective gasp. Two balls later, when Kaur glided a short ball off the face of the bat to the wicketkeeper, the gasp turned into pin-drop silence. No song blared around the stadium now.
Ranaweera, who had only ever taken three wickets in an innings eight times in 80 ODIs before this one, had snaffled three in one over in a World Cup opener.
When Richa Ghosh followed suit in the 27th over, handing another easy catch to cover, one freakish over had officially turned into a full-blown collapse. India had lost four wickets for four runs in two overs. This was not how a home World Cup was supposed to start. Or maybe it was, but for Sri Lanka, who are also hosting the event along with India.
Fortunately for India, the pair of Amanjot Kaur and Deepti Sharma bailed them out of potential embarrassment. Amanjot, playing her first game after returning from injury, counter-attacked with powerful slog sweeps while Deepti relied on the traditional ones that she has perfected over the years. Amanjot gave several chances, including one to Ranaweera to complete what would have been her first five-for, but the 39-year-old dropped a tough return chance.
Both batters made run-a-ball half-centuries before a few lusty blows by Sneh Rana took India to 269-8 - the sort of total that looked far-fetched when Ranaweera’s three-part trick turned the game on its head an hour back.
India’s recovery means their campaign opener wasn’t off to the disaster it looked set to be. Amanjot Kaur might have earned some new fans with her knock, and if this World Cup delivers even half what’s expected of it, many more players would come out of it with their status similarly enhanced. But no matter what, that one disruptive five-ball spell from a 39-year-old Sri Lankan spinner in Guwahati will remain the first defining act of the 2025 Women’s World Cup.
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