Spinners Shreyanka Patil (3-19) and Saika Ishaque (3-22) turn things around as Harmanpreet Kaur’s Team India beat England by five wickets for consolation win in third and final T20I
Shreyanka Patil (second from right) celebrates an English wicket with skipper Harmanpreet Kaur at Wankhede yesterday. Pics/PTI
The Indian women’s team put up a fine display in the third and final T20I at the Wankhede on Sunday.
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First, to bowl out the Englishwomen for 126 and then, achieve the target with five wickets and one over to spare.
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Pride salvaged
The win helped salvage some pride after the visitors won the first two games.
India benefited from a 57-run second-wicket partnership in 55 balls between opener Smriti Mandhana and local girl Jemimah Rodrigues.
Saika Ishaque is ecstatic afterclaiming the wicket of England’s Danielle Gibson for a duck
Rodrigues kept the gathering in excess of 25,000 cheerful with her sweep shots that fetched her boundaries while Mandhana mixed her pulls and drives with some lofted sweep and picked the gaps beautifully, for fours and sixes.
The crowd went quiet when she missed another attempted sweep to be trapped leg before by Saturday’s player of the match and off-spinner Charlie Dean for 29 (33b, 4x4). However, Mandhana gave the crowd something to cheer about by holding on to her crease and ensuring an India victory. The India vice-captain, though, missed her fifty by two runs, falling to a run-a-ball 48 (5x4, 2x6) with 15 still needed to win. Amanjot Kaur’s three boundaries in the 19th over including the winning hit off left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone clinched the deal for the hosts.
With the series already in England’s bag—the sixth bilateral series that they have won against India in as many attempts—England made four changes by resting key batters Nat Sciver-Brunt and Danielle Wyatt among others. This reflected on their batting with only captain Heather Knight giving a fillip to their total with a late flourish, scoring 52 (42b, 3x4, 3x6) after occupying the crease at the end of the third over and batting till the penultimate ball of the innings.
A majority of Knight’s runs came in the death overs. Barring her 41-run stand in 36 balls for the fourth wicket with Amy Jones (25) and 50 for the ninth wicket in 31 balls with Dean (16 not out), it was the Indian bowlers all the way.
Medium-pacer Renuka Singh continued to take wickets in the Powerplay while spinners Saika Ishaque and Shreyanka Patil picked up three wickets apiece.
The 26-year-old Renuka has been India’s best bowler since making her international debut two years ago. Out of her 38 WT20I wickets, 26 have come in the Powerplay including nine in the innings’ first over. In this series alone, she took six wickets in the Powerplay and accounted for opener Sophia Dunkley in all the three matches.
Renuka shines too
On Sunday, Renuka dismissed Maia Bouchier with the third delivery, bowling the right-hander through the gap. In her second over, she forced Dunkley to cut straight to the point fielder.
The introduction of left-arm spinner Ishaque in the sixth over saw England lose Alice Capsey immediately. Ishaque struck again with the first delivery of her second spell, breaking the fourth-wicket partnership by having Jones slog sweep straight to Shreyanka Patil in the deep. Both the wicket-taking Indian spinners Ishaque and off-spinner Patil were on a hat-trick while quick bowler Amanjot, who replaced Pooja Vastrakar in the only change for India from Saturday’s XI, picked up two wickets in the last two deliveries of the English innings.
Brief scores
England 126 all out in 20 overs (H Knight 52, A Jones 25; S Patil 3-19, S Ishaque 3-22, R Singh 2-23, A Kaur 2-25) lost to India 127-5 in 19 overs (S Mandhana 48, J Rodrigues 29; F Kemp 2-24, S Ecclestone 2-40) by 5 wickets
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