Toss – Won by England Women and elected to bat first
Courtesy : Jhulan Goswami (Twitter)
1st Innings Summary – With one change in the Playing XI (Punam Raut replacing Harleen Deol), Indian pace bowling pair of Jhulan Goswami and Shikha Pandey started the proceedings as Amy Ellen Jones and Tammy Beaumont opened up for England. Just like previous match, Shikha got Jones caught out in her very first over (2nd over of the innings). Sarah Taylor could not do much and became first victim of Goswami in 5th over. Pandey kept making unsuccessful LBW appeals in her every over at the other end and thus was not allowing the batters to settle down. As a result, skipper Heather Knight played a lofty shot and ended up giving a simple catch to Jemimah Rodrigues at short cover as England was reduced to 14 for 3 in 6.1 overs.
Natalie Sciver walked out to bat at number 5 and provided the much-needed stability to England’s innings before Deepti Sharma took a stunning catch to send back Beaumont in 14th over. The scoreboard read 90 for 4 at the end of 25 overs.
The 49-run partnership between Sciver and Lauren Winfield was broken in 28th over, firstly by frustrating batters by not allowing them to play shots and then forcing an error by Winfield in wake of playing a big shot. Shikha Pandey took two more wickets in 29th over and produced her career best 10-over spell giving four major breakthroughs to her team. Third LBW in a row came in the form of Anya Shrubsole’s wicket in 32nd over.
Sciver played sensibly at one end and had luck by her side as she was dropped twice and marginally saved in a run-out attempt but rest of the English batting line-up was evidently struggling a lot as England was reduced to 119 for 9 in 36 overs. The first six of the match came off Sciver’s bat on second ball of 39th over and a 42-run last wicket partnership with Alex Hartley helped England put up a target of 162 runs before India.
2nd Innings Summary – India’s young sensation Jemimah Rodrigues was sent back to pavilion on a duck by the 2017 World Cup super-woman, Anya Shrubsole on the fifth ball of second over. Smriti Mandhana on the other end seemed to be in perfect form and played some beautiful shots out of the fence. Number three batter Punam Raut took her time to settle down and was complimenting her teammate very well as India reached 59-1 at the end of 15 overs.
Raut was dropped by Sciver in 18th over but was stumped out by one of the quickest keeper of women’s cricket, Sarah Taylor in 20th over, thus bringing an end to 73-run partnership for second wicket. Indian skipper Mithali Raj came in to join Mandhana at number four. Next 13 overs was a blend of Mandhana’s perfectly timed fours and six and Mithali’s classical innings. Smriti reached her 15th ODI half-century in 28th over with the help of a four. The partnership was finally broken by Anya Shrubsole got Mandhana LBW out on the first ball of 34th over. The moment the ball hit her pad, the batter knew she was out and started walking back even before the umpire’s finger went up. But she had done her job well as India needed just 22 runs to win by then. The Indian captain took the charge from there on and hit a four off the first ball of 42nd over to clinch the match as well the series.
Player of the match – Jhulan Goswami for providing the required breakthroughs just when they were needed and taking four wickets in 8.3 overs.
Other Remarkable Performances –
- Shikha Pandey – 10-1-18-4
- Poonam Yadav – 10-2-28-2
- Natalie Sciver – 109 ball 85-runs innings
- Smriti Mandhana – 74 ball 63-runs innings
- Anya Shrubsole – 8-2-23-2
Brief scorecard:
England Women – 161/10 (43.3 overs)
India Women – 162/3 (41.1 overs)
Result – India Women won by 7 wickets
‘Gully’ cricket player and close observer of Indian Cricket team and it’s matches. Straight forward and still socially admirable personality. Strong belief in teamwork and possess high leadership skills.