Smriti Mandhana played the starring role with her fourth ODI century as India started their ICC Women’s Championship series in New Zealand with a comprehensive nine-wicket win.
The spin trio of Ekta Bisht (3/32), Poonam Yadav (3/42) and Deepti Sharma (2/27) set up the win, bowling the home side out for 192 in 48.4 overs after Suzie Bates and Sophie Devine had given them a good start with a 61-run stand.
The chase was headlined by Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues, who scored 190 runs together before being separated in the 33rd over, with the target just a hit away. Mandhana scored 105 in 104 balls, while Rodrigues remained unbeaten on a 94-ball 81 when the target was crossed.
“Really happy. I have a thing of getting out in the 70s and 80s, so I had to talk to myself, ‘don’t hit any rash shots, don’t hit any lofted shots, just play in singles and doubles’. I’m really happy with that aspect. I was able to stick in and guide the team through. Again, if I’d scored three runs I would have been a lot happier,” Mandhana said after the game.
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Mandhana and Rodrigues started cautiously, playing out the first two overs from Lea Tahuhu and Hannah Rowe before hitting a four each in Tahuhu’s second over to get going.
“The wicket was really good to bat on, and initially we just played according to the merit of the ball. We just had to react to the ball, because they had good pacers,” Mandhana said.
“The plan was to see how the new ball was doing. This was the first time we were batting in New Zealand, and we didn’t really know … we watched a bit of the men’s match and also how the first innings went. So we decided to just keep it simple, play according to the merit of the ball.”
The pace at which the two scored, getting to 190 in 32.1 overs, even a steeper target might have been well within their reach. “If we keep going, we score at a really high rate, so we don’t really need to worry about the run rate,” Mandhana said. “The way we were going, I think we would have been able to chase 280-300. Anything above 260, as a batter you have it at the back of the mind … anything above 260, it would have been tough.”
For New Zealand, it was a matter of starting well but then letting the momentum drop. Bates (36) and Devine (28) did well at the top, but though captain Amy Satterthwaite (31), Amelie Kerr (28) and Rowe (25) got good starts, there weren’t any significant partnerships, and no real let up in the fall of wickets.
“Suzie and Sophie batted pretty well at the top, and built a bit of a platform, but we didn’t get a big enough partnership at any stage of the innings (after that). A lot of people got starts, 20s and 30s, and didn’t kick on. There were a lot of dot balls and we created our own pressure, tried to release it with a shot that’s not really on,” Satterthwaite agreed.
During the Indian innings then, there were quite a few spells of dot balls, but a boundary followed almost on cue.
“Certainly with the ball, at times we weren’t patient enough. We didn’t create enough pressure and didn’t string enough dot balls together, and always released it with a four ball. So you’re chasing your tail constantly and that makes it pretty tough,” Satterthwaite said.
Highlights of India’s win
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Mandhana’s 104 was her fourth ODI century, putting her in second place behind Mithali Raj (seven) in the list of Indian century-scorers. Harmanpreet Kaur is in third place with three.
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The 190-run stand between Mandhana and Rodrigues was the third-best for the first wicket for India in ODIs. Deepti Sharma and Punam Raut are at the top of the chart with their 320-run association against Ireland in Potchefstroom in 2017, followed by Reshma Gandhi and Raj, who had an unbroken 258-run stand against Ireland in Milton Keynes in 1999.
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Overall, it was India’s fourth-best partnership in ODIs, behind the unbroken third-wicket stand of 223 between Jaya Sharma and Anjum Chopra, against Pakistan in Karachi in 2005.
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The win matched India’s best against New Zealand in terms of wickets – they had won by the same margin in Aurangabad in December 2003 and in Bangalore in July 2015.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo