Vadodara. After brilliant centuries by Harmanpreet Kaur and Deepti Sharma, Indian women’s cricket team defeated Zimbabwe by 121 runs in the second ODI on the basis of deadly bowling by Vaishnavi Sharma.
In the match played on Sunday, India, batting first, scored 328 runs for six wickets. In reply, Zimbabwe was all out for 207 runs in 48.5 overs. With this victory, India took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.
For India, former captain Harmanpreet Kaur played a brilliant inning of 126 runs in 121 balls with the help of 15 fours. Whereas, Deepti Sharma scored 106 runs in 86 balls with the help of 15 fours.
There was a partnership of 153 runs in 137 balls between the two for the fifth wicket, which strengthened the Indian innings and took the team to a big score.
However, the start of the Indian team was not good. The team was under pressure due to the fall of two wickets for just 19 runs. After this, Harmanpreet along with opener Pratika Rawal took over the innings by adding 124 runs for the third wicket.
Pratika scored 61 runs in 67 balls. After recovering from the initial shock, the Indian batsmen increased the run rate and took the score beyond 300.
Chasing the target of 329 runs, Zimbabwe team had scored 47 runs after losing one wicket in the first 10 overs. However, after this the Indian bowlers put the opposition team under pressure by taking wickets at regular intervals.
For Zimbabwe, opener Modest Mupachikawa scored the highest 49 runs, but he did not get enough support from the other end. Five batsmen of the team could not even cross double figures, while three players were out without opening the account.
Vaishnavi Sharma took maximum four wickets for India and played an important role in containing Zimbabwe’s batting.