India vs Sri Lanka Women's | Bowlers shine as India thrash Sri Lanka by 9 wickets in 1st ODI
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It was a combined bowling performance in the first ODI of the series at Galle that lead to a nine-wicket victory for the Indian side against Sri Lanka on Tuesday. Mansi Joshi scalped three wickets for India while left-handed opener Smriti Mandhana top-scored with unbeaten 73 in the run-chase.
Brief scores: Sri Lanka Women 98/10 (Chamari Athapaththu 33; Mansi Joshi 3-16) lost to India Women 100-1 in 19.5 overs (Smriti Mandhana 73*; Inoka Ranaweera 1-5) by 9 wickets
The poor run of the Sri Lankan Women's cricket team continued as they started off on a terrible note in the first game of the third round of the ICC Women's Championship. Medium pacer Mansi first got rid of wicket-keeper Prasadini Weerakkody and the veteran soon followed it up with the wicket of Nipuni Hanshika after the Lankans decided to bat first in the morning.
Skipper Chamari Athapaththu carried on the recovery work in the top-order as she scored 33 off 93 balls before getting out to Deepti Sharma. Sripali Weerakkody's lower order contribution of 26 runs was the next highest score in the Lankan innings. As wickets kept on tumbling at regular intervals, the Lankans were bowled out for a minuscule total of 98 runs in 35.1 overs. Apart from Mansi, Jhulan and Poonam Yadav claimed two wickets each. Mansi ended up with impressive figures of 3/16 in 6.1 overs.
Chasing a mere 99 in 50 overs, Mandhana and Punam Raut batted quite comfortably in the powerplay period. Although Raut slowed down a bit, Mandhana continued his splendid batting display and went onto remain unbeaten for 73 off just 76 deliveries. She toyed with the Lankan bowlers by hitting 11 boundaries and two sixes in her knock. The Lankan bowlers had only one positive thing happening to them and that is the wicket of Raut (24) who was picked up by Inoka Ranaweera with only three runs remaining in the run-chase. Mandhana sealed the game with a four as India took 1-0 lead in the three-match series with Mithali Raj at the other end. The next ODI will also be played at Galle International Stadium on Thursday.
