ENG W VS IND W | Harmanpreet Kaur shines in India’s victory
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India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur played a match winning innings, on Friday, against England giving India a victory in the opening match of the T20I Tri-Series in Australia. After England put on a score of 147-7 batting first, India chased the target with quite an ease to win the game by 5 wickets.
Brief scores: ENGW 147-7 (Heather Knight 67 and Rajeshwari Gayakwad 2/19) lost to INDW 150-5 (Harmanpreet Kaur 42 and Kathrine Brunt 2/33)
After winning the toss and opting to bowl first the indian team got off to a perfect start by dismissing the 26 years old Amy jones on the fifth ball of the very first over by Gayakwad. Danielle Wyatt (4), Natalie Sciver (20), Fran Wilson (7) all got off to a start but none went on to convert as India pegged England with wickets at regular intervals. Rajeshwari Gayakwad (2/19), Shikha Pandey (2/33) and Deepti Sharma (2/30) were the main assassins with the ball for India, but a steady partnership between Heather Knight (67 off 44) and Beaumont (37 off 24) took England to a total score of 147.
Chasing 148, Indian Women got off to a flyer in the second over thanks to Smriti Mandana (15 off 10) who hit 3 fours to Brunt, but Natalie Sciver sent the opener in the 4th over of the inning, after which Jemimah Rodrigues (26 off 20) and Shafal Verma (30 off 25) kept the inning going until Knight got Shafali in the 8th over and Brunt got Rodrigues in the 11th over. Following that, the skipper kept the scoreboard ticking while a couple of wickets kept falling at other end and went on to chase down the total with 3 balls to spare alongside Deepti Sharma (12).
Harmanpreet’s match-winning 42 included 5 fours and 1 six which came in the final over when India just needed 4 runs to win. The results led India to their first win of the series where each team gets four games before the final in Melbourne. The second T20I will be played between Australia Women and England Women on February 1, at Manuka Oval. India will be playing Australia next at Canberra on February 2.
