Opener Smriti Mandhana fabulous innings of 79* runs, and captain Harmanpreet Kaur unbeaten 29* helped India to beat England by eight wickets in the second T20I against England on Wednesday.
After losing the first T20I, the Indian Women’s team came up to level the series at County Cricket Ground, Derby. The host won the toss and elected to bat first, their start was not so good, and they lost three wickets in quick intervals. Deepti Sharma provided the first breakthrough in form of Sophia Dunkley, on the very first ball of the second over.
Powerplay was not so good for England, and they ended it with 29/3. Amy Jones tried hard to resuscitate their team, but Sneh Rana became the road thorn for Jones and Bryony Smith’s innings and sent them to the pavilion. After their mid inning, host innings were shaking around 60/5. But the partnership of 65 runs in just 8 overs between Maria Bouchier and Freya Kemp helped English team to set a respectable total of 142 on the board. Kemp played an attacking inning of 51 runs and became the youngest women batter to score a t20 international fifty, and she was well supported by the constructive knock of Bouchier from the other end. For Team India, Sneh Rana was the star performer with ball as she took 3 wickets by giving just 24 runs in his quota of 4 overs.
In the chase, the Indian openers provided blistering start and attacked every English bowler in the powerplay, as the result, they piled up quick 55 runs with the loss of one wicket in powerplay. India lost their first wicket in the form of Shefali Verma, then Hemlata came to bat and was dismissed soon; this brought Indian Captain to the crease. On the other side, Smriti scored the boundaries at regular intervals to let Kaur settle in. Both batters were prolific and made an unbeaten 69 runs partnership. With the help of this partnership, Indian team did not face any difficulties while chasing the total. India chased the target with 20 balls to spare. Sophie Ecclestone and Freya Davies took 1 wickets each for England.
Smriti Mandhana was the “Player of Match” for her glorious knock of 79* runs that included 13 boundaries.
