India Women completed a 2-1 series win against West Indies Women and collected valuable points in the ICC Women’s Championship to remain in the third rank.
The day began with the Windies batting first. Their captain Stafanie Taylor played a responsible know to add 79 off 112 balls. But it was not enough as she hardly got any support from others. Hayley Matthews from the top order scored 26 off 39 and it was Stafanie who saved her team from collapse. Apart from the skipper Stacy-Ann King also scored 38 and both added 96 runs for the 6th wicket. Indian bowlers who were doing their job brilliantly never let the Windies took absolute control of the match. Moreover, they dismissed two set batters in the 48th and 49th over which impacted the final total set by West Indies Women. The last three overs saw the hosts losing five wickets and eventually getting wrapped up for 194. For India Jhulan Goswami and Poonam Yadav, were the pick of the bowlers with two wickets apiece. Shikha Pandey, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, and Deepti Sharma provided the much-needed support and scalped one each.
Smriti Mandhana made her comeback after a toe injury and all eyes were on her for obvious reasons. The injury had kept her out of international cricket during the home series against South Africa and the first two ODIs in West Indies as well. But the elegant left-hander turned out to be the key player in India’s final match against the Windies. Mandhana, along with Jemimah Rodrigues stitched together 141 runs and batted without trouble for 25 overs. That effectively finished the match. Rodrigues was the first to go for 69 off 92 and Mandhana followed her immediately within next two overs after scoring 74 off 63 balls.
Then experienced Mithali Raj and Punam Raut took the charge of taking India home. They added 40 runs to make sure there was no further collapse. However, both of them were dismissed with the score on 190 and once again in two consecutive overs. India still needed five runs to win the match and series with almost ten overs in hand. Finally, Deepti Sharma finished the match with a boundary. Hayley Matthews also made a return for West Indies and finished with an astonishing figure of 3/27.
After losing the 1st ODI on November 1 by just one run, India women, under Mithali Raj, fought back to eventually complete a remarkable series win. Now, these two teams will take on each other in a 5-match T20I series between November 9 and November 20.