Indian women cricket team on Thursday registered a comprehensive 52-run win over Ireland in their third group match and in the process qualified for the semifinal round of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

Speaking to media, after India entered the semis, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana said Women-in-Blue had to reach the knockout stage of the ongoing tournament after their Asia Cup debacle six months ago.

“It means a lot because after the Asia Cup final, a lot of things happened back home,” Mandhana said, adding, “Everyone had actually thought that we wouldn’t even make it to the semi-finals because we did not even win the Asia Cup. But I guess everyone was motivated enough after the Asia Cup that this time, this is the time everyone will be watching, and we have to prove our point because in 2017 we qualified for the final, but only it cannot happen just once.”

The stylish left-handed batsman also said India wanted to maintain their dominant form in every match. So far, India have been unbeaten in WWT20 and they will aim to continue their winning streak when they will face much-fancied Australian team on Saturday.

“I think we will be looking at it as a match only and not just like we need to be on the top of the table of this group,” Smriti Mandhan said. “That’s what our mindset will be, and to go all out. Before coming into the World T20, Ramesh (Powar, the coach) had told us that you have to dominate each and every match, so that is the only mindset which we had the last three matches, and I don’t think it will change in the next match,” she added.

Talking about India’s batting against Ireland, Mandhana, who scored 33, said, “The first two matches I definitely felt we were good, but today I felt batting could have been better. But bowling and fielding I think we are really good, and we dominated the opposition.”

“I didn’t think that 140 was good enough because in T20s you can’t keep thinking about the wicket and the outfield because it’s such a fast game,” she said. “So I think we were aiming at 165 to 170, but unfortunately we could not do that,” Smriti Mandhana added.