New Zealand increased the tension of Team India, now it is a do-or-die battle in the race for the T20 World Cup semi-final.

The race for the semi-finals of the Women's T20 World Cup 2024 has become very tough and the challenge for Team India has increased. Once again the reason for this is the New Zealand cricket team, which defeated Team India in the first match itself. Now once again New Zealand has made the path of the Indian team difficult. In their third match of the group stage, New Zealand defeated Sri Lanka by 8 wickets. With this win, New Zealand now has 4 points equal to Team India, due to which Team India will need a win over defending champion Australia in their last match at all costs. At the same time, Sri Lanka, which was already out of the tournament, also lost their fourth and last match.

In this match played on Saturday 12 October in Sharjah, Sri Lanka batted first but the Asian champion team lost its momentum after a fast start. With the dismissal of star captain Chamari Atapattu in the 14th over, Sri Lanka's hopes of a big score also faded. When Atapattu was out, Sri Lanka's score was only 74 runs. Sri Lankan batsmen struggled to play fast in front of New Zealand's tight bowling. Atapattu scored the highest 35 runs but spent 41 balls. The team's top-3 batsmen scored 61 runs but spent 85 balls for this. Still, somehow this team was able to reach a score of 115 runs.

New Zealand also had trouble getting off to a fast start and for 4 overs, no boundary was hit by the team. Still, Suzie Bates and Georgia Plimer did not lose patience and then the pace of runs increased from the fifth over. Together, the two gave the team a start of 49 runs which ensured that victory would be achieved. However, Sri Lanka also did not let New Zealand reach the target easily and New Zealand won the match by 8 wickets only in the 18th over. For that, Plimer played an innings of 53 runs in 44 balls, while Emily Curr also scored 34 runs.

This victory of New Zealand has made the road a little difficult for Team India. After this victory, both teams have 4 points each and both have only one match left. This is the difference. Team India faced the current champion and the strongest team Australia in its last match, which has defeated every team including New Zealand very easily. New Zealand will face Pakistan. Team India will now have to win this match at any cost so that it can make it to the semi-finals. If New Zealand had lost this match, it would have had only 2 points, and its already poor net run rate would have worsened further. In such a situation, it would have needed a huge win against Pakistan in the last match. In such a situation, even if Team India had lost to Australia by a small margin in its last match, it would have had a high chance of reaching the semi-finals. Now nothing less than a win is necessary for it because even a defeat by a small margin can put it out of the tournament.