Mandhana's graceful 90 leads India to 6-wicket win over SA, ODI series sweep

Smriti Mandhana waltzed to a characteristically elegant 90 to form the crux of Indias sixwicket win in the third and final womens ODI against South Africa marking their 30 INDW vs SAW series clean sweep on SundayMandhana whose innings came off 83 balls 11x4 had efficient support casts in Shafali Verma 25 Priya Punia 28 and Harmanpreet Kaur 42 48b 2x4 as India went past the target of 216 without exerting themselves muchThe hosts made 220 for four in 404 overs after South Africa were restricted to an underwhelming 215 for eight despite skipper Laura Wolvaardts solid 61 57b 7x4Though she failed to make a third hundred on the bounce the knock underlined the way Mandhana dominated this INDW vs SAW ODI series scoring 343 runs at an average of 11433The 27yearold was once again composed in the middle and played some typically graceful shots around the Chinnaswamy stadiumThe pitch was smoothened out during the chase and the SA bowling was anything but threatening giving the Indian vicecaptain ample time to pursue her game without an iota of pressureOn view were those trademark shots that make her batting a sight for the sore eyes swivel pulls cover drives straight drives and those late taps that touch the rope after teasing the third man fielderHowever Mandhanas batting partners too deserved a pat on their backs for producing little yet polished knocksAlso ReadOn this day in 2013 India solidified ODI supremacy with Champions Trophy titleShafali helped her make 61 runs in 115 overs for the opening wicket while Priya who is playing an ODI for the first time since 2019 assisted her in amassing 62 runs in 66 balls for the second wicketSkipper Harmanpreet was fluent during the unbeaten third wicket stand that was worth 54 runsBut the vociferous highlypartisan crowd that touched 15000 could not see a popular Mandhana century as her attempt to sweep leftarm spinner Nonku Mlaba ended in the hands of Ayabonga KhakaEarlier the Indian bowlers showed an unbending will to restrict South Africa to 215 for eight after the visitors raced to 102 without loss in 195 oversWolvaardt and Tazmin Brits 38 66b 2x4 1x6 negated Indian bowlers during their firstwicket alliance as SA looked set for a big total that could have given them a chance to register a consolation winBoth Wolvaardt and Brits were comfortable against the Indian bowlers even though there was a hint of varied bounce which was evident when pacer Pooja Vastrakar beat the defence of Sune Luus 13 with a delivery that stayed close to her ankleHowever the SA openers found a way to tackle that as they hardly opted for aerial shots and collected their runs more pragmatically with singles twos and the occasional power shotsBrits six off leftarm spinner Radha Yadav over midwicket following a little shimmy down the track was the lone moment of explosionAt the other end Wolvaardt maintained a strikerate of over 100 without ever really taking undue risksThe tourists crossed the 100run mark in the 18th over but their fortunes turned around when pacer Arundhati Reddy pulled off an excellent return catch to dismiss a set WolvaardtArundhati later produced an even better caught and bowled effort to jettison Anneke Bosch as India twisted the knife through SAs batting unit under Arundhati 236 and offspinner Deepti Sharma 227 who was hard to score offHowever South Africa also had their own indiscretions to blame for the downfallBrits and Nondumise Shangase 16 charged out for nonexisting singles to get run out just when they were looking to upshift the gearsThe Proteas lost eight wickets for 113 runs in that period and it was always going to be too deep an abyss for them to climb backWith agency inputs