The stroke maker Smriti Mandhana continued her purple patch as she scored a classy 91 off 102 balls and guided India to a challenging total of 314/9 in their first women’s ODI against West Indies, played at Vadodara on Sunday. This was the fifth time she scored over 50 in as many innings, getting large chunks of her 110-run fifth-wicket partnership with debutant Pratika Rawal (40 off 69). The platform was set by Mandhana for the middle-order to really unleash their power, which they did with Harmanpreet Kaur (34 off 23), Harleen Deol (44 off 50), Richa Ghosh (26 off 12), and Jemimah Rodrigues (31 off 19).
India dropped hard-hitting Shafali Verma from the squad. After that, they have used several batters alongside Mandhana, and this Sunday was the turn of Delhi cricketer Pratika, who batted at a strike rate of 57.97.
She was also dropped once soon after, at mid-off, when she was batting on three in the tenth. Most were put down on her leg side, where she found four leg-side boundaries through the sweep.
Mandhana, at the other end, had the audience amused with his cover drive and pull.
Mandhana also became the first woman player to score more than 1600 runs in a single calendar year during that innings.
Woman cricketers with most runs in a calendar year –
- Smriti Mandhana (2024) – 1602 2.Laura Wolvaardt (2024) 1593
- Nat Sciver-Brunt (2022) 1346
4.Smriti Mandhana (2018) 1291
- Smriti Mandhana(2022) 1290
The change in pace came about as India welcomed the fit-again skipper Harmanpreet back into the fold; she struck at almost 150 to take the innings exactly where it needed at that point.
Richa and Rodrigues, who have both been in a splendid run of form recently, kept things rolling for India beyond that.
West Indies’s best bowler was left-arm spinner Zaida James, who finished with 5 wickets at a cost of 45 runs in 8 overs.
Could have gotten much more for India in the death overs; 20 runs came off the last three, with James bagging three more wickets in the last over.
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