BIRMINGHAM, June 16 -- The over that broke Pakistan was Deepti Sharma's fourth. Three wickets fell inside it, a chase that had already lost its nerve simply stopped breathing, and a World Cup opener that India had controlled for an hour turned into the kind of result that makes the rest of the group take notice.

By the time she walked off, Sharma had 5 for 10, the best figures any India woman has produced in a Twenty20 international. Pakistan, chasing 171, were bowled out for 106 in the seventeenth over. India won by 64 runs, and on the evidence of a Sunday night at Edgbaston the margin felt generous to the losers.

This is the fixture that does not need a build-up, and India have now won the last several editions of it at World Cups wit...