It was not Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur or Jemimah Rodrigues, but the lower-order players who came to the fore, with the experienced all-rounder Deepti Sharma leading the charge. Of late, there had been too much reliance on the top order, with Mandhana doing the bulk of the work. Thus, it was a much-needed reality check and the lower order came up trumps to help India start their World Cup campaign convincingly. 

For many years now, Agra-born Deepti has been the ‘go-to’ player whenever the team is in trouble and it was no different against Sri Lanka on Tuesday night. After she bailed out the team with a well-compiled half-century, she excelled with the ball too, picking up three wickets, including the crucial one of Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu, thus guiding the team to a commanding 59-run win after India seemed to be in trouble mid-way through their innings.