India, Sept. 18 -- The Indian women's cricket team has reached the semifinals of the 2026 Asian Games after thrashing Japan by eight wickets at Nisshin on Friday. They will now play Bangladesh in the last-four on Sunday, after their subcontinental neighbours' quarterfinal against China on Thursday was washed out without a single ball being bowled, and Nigar Sultana's bunch advanced to the next round on account of their better ranking.

Anyway, Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and decided to bowl. The Japanese team appeared to bat with the following strategy: just don't get bowled out. Which was understandable. They were playing against one of the biggest teams in the world, and they wanted to give a decent account of themselves in front of t...