After winning the ODI series by 2-1, India women were looking forward to win the T20 series too and New Zealand women were waiting for a bounce back.
NEW ZEALAND WOMEN TAKE A LEAD OF 1-0!
In the first T20I, India women won the toss and elected to bowl. After Suzie Bates lost her wicket early in the game, Sophie Devine and Amy Satterthwaite had to take on the charge of giving a good target to chase to the guests. Sophie contributed for 62 and Amy contributed for 33 runs. India was a little loose on the fielding side. Sophie and Amy fell on the deliveries of Arundhati Reddy and Deepti Sharma respectively. Katey Martin and Frances Mackay together contributed for 37 runs and New Zealand women gave India a target of 160 runs.
Mithali Raj was not included in the team. Smriti Mandhana and debutant Priya Puniya were opening the innings for India. Priya Punia threw her wicket in the first over after scoring a boundary. Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodriguez were looking to get India through the game with their partnership. They kept boundaries coming in and Smriti Mandhana broke her own record of scoring the fastest half-century in T20s by any Indian woman. She bettered her record by a ball and scored her seventh half-century in 24 balls. Smriti was dismissed at 58 runs from 34 balls with a stunning catch taken by Hannah Rowe and the catch was called ‘game changer’ by Skipper Satterthwaite. The collapse of Indian batting order continued and New Zealand women won the match by 23 runs with one over to go. New Zealand took a lead in the series with 1-0.
Brief scores:
1st T20- New Zealand won by 23 runs.
New Zealand women: 159/4 (20) ; India women: 136 (19.1)
