India Women completed another one-day series win at home as they have taken a 2-0 lead in the ongoing ODI series against South Africa Women at Vadodra.
The Indians won the toss and decided to field first. There was much better batting effort from South Africa in this match as all the top order players had good starts. In fact, seven out of their eight batters reached double-digits and all their top five batters scored excess of at least 22. Laura Wolvaardt again stared with a solid 69 with seven fours as she added 76 runs for the first wicket with Lizelle Lee who scored 40. There was another big partnership between Mignon du Preez and Lara Goodall as they added 59 runs for the fourth wicket. Du Preez scored 44 and Goodall contributed with 38 for the Proteas. They finally put up a respectable 247/6 in their 50 overs. For India, three bowlers took two wickets each as Shikha Pandey, Ekta Bisht and Poonam Yadav shared the six wickets to fall among themselves.
Priya Punia and Jemimah Rodrigues gave India a decent start as they added 34 runs before Rodrigues was dismissed. Punia also added 32 runs with Punam Raut before getting out for 20. Then came the biggest partnership of the innings as Punam and the captain Mithali Raj added 129 runs to effectively seal the match for India. Punam reached her 12th ODI fifty as she scored an attractive 65 with seven fours. On the other hand, Mithali scored her 53rd ODI fifty as she finished with 66 with eight fours. But India lost both Mithali and Punam in quick succession in 40th and 41st over. Then with 52 more runs required Harmanpreet Kaur played an important cameo. She scored 39 of the remaining 52 runs off 27 balls with five fours and one six and ensured India won the match with two overs to spare. For South Africa, Ayabonga Khaka took three wickets.
The 248-run chase by India Women in this game is their biggest successful ODI chase. With this win, India got an unassailable 2-0 lead and will look for the whitewash in the third match of the series on 14th October. This was the 5th consecutive ODI series or tournament win for India Women; their longest series winning streak in this format. This is also the second time that India won five consecutive bilateral ODI series. Earlier they achieved the same feat when they won five bilateral series in succession th7at were played between 1999 and 2002.