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The Indian women’s team clinched the T20I series against England with an unassailable 3-1 lead after winning the fourth match by six wickets at the Old Trafford Ground in Manchester on Wednesday.
With this, the India Women confirmed their first-ever T20I bilateral series win against the England women, either at home or away.
Chasing a meagre 127, India openers Smriti Mandhana (32 off 31) and Shafali Verma (31 off 19) put on a 56-run stand till the seventh over before the latter was dismissed by offie Charlie Dean.
Smriti too was sent back to the hut soon after and suddenly, England seemed to be back in the game. However, another partnership bloomed — a 48-run stand between skipper Harmanpreet Kaur (26 off 25) and Jemimah Rodrigues (24 not out off 22) — which helped the visitor win the match with three overs to spare.
AS IT HAPPENED | ENG-W vs IND-W, 4th T20I Highlights
After winning the toss for the fourth match in a row in the series, England chose to bat, perhaps hoping to emulate the start its openers gave in the third match. However, Sophia Dunkley (22 off 19) and Danni Wyatt-Hodge (five off seven) couldn’t replicate their form from the evening in London.
Indian spinners made merry on the track.
After Dunkley and Wyatt-Hodge were removed in the PowerPlay by Deepti Sharma and N. Sree Charani respectively, the duo of Alice Capsey (18 off 21) and skipper Tammy Beaumont (20 off 19) looked settled to steady the ship. The visitor’s tweakers, however, never gave the batters enough time to get comfortable and put on the squeeze with great effect.
Between the 7th and 20th over, the spinners bowled nine and conceded 56 runs out of the total 88 runs, while taking five wickets between themselves. Radha Yadav emerged as pick of the bowlers with figures of 2/15 in four overs.
A couple of sixes in the last over off of Sophie Ecclestone and Issy Wong’s blades offered some hope for the host but the total was always going to be a below-par one to defend.
