The Indian women’s cricket team faced its third consecutive defeat in the five-match T20I series against South Africa in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
With this, the hosts took an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series, handing India their first T20I series defeat in two years since the home defeat against Australia in 2024.
India was on a brilliant run before this series, having won five of its last six T20I series, including two 5-0 clean sweeps over Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
But here, India lost their third match in a row as South African captain Laura Wolvaardt (115) blasted a fiery century to chase down a solid target of 193 in just 16.2 overs.
Wolvaardt extended her luck with the toss, winning it for the third time in the series and once again asked India to bat first.
The visitors put the struggles from the first two games behind as the openers Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma built a solid base with 51 runs in the powerplay.
But then, in the eighth over, India lost two successive wickets in two deliveries: first Smriti (37), then Jemimah Rodrigues (0).
However, the team didn’t lose its momentum as captain Harmanpreet Kaur (66) and Shafali (64) continued to attack and completed their respective half-centuries.
This propelled India to 192/4, the highest total in a women’s T20I game between the two nations.
But the South African opener Laura and Sune Luus (64*) made a meal out of it, adding 183 runs for the opening wicket.
Indian fielders made South Africaβs task even easier by dropping two catches of Laura in the 4th and 14th overs, which cost them dearly.
Comments are closed.