Smriti Mandhana: The Indian women’s cricket team has started the England tour with a resounding victory. In the first T20 International match, the Indian team performed brilliantly and defeated England by 38 runs. Captain Smriti Mandhana looked very happy with the team’s performance. He gave the credit of the victory to Yastika Bhatia who returned to the team after 8 months.
Mandhana said that Yastika’s innings proved to be the turning point of the match and she took the match out of England’s reach. He said, “Losing two wickets in the powerplay was not right. The credit for the victory goes to Yastika, who returned after 8 months. She took the match out of the reach of England. Jemima once again did the same thing she does. Fielding in the second innings proved beneficial. Got a lot of inputs from Jemmie and Yastika. All the bowlers were working on their plan. She was calm under pressure. Nandini has the fire inside her to perform well. She made some important wickets. Bowled overs and took important wickets.”
England captain Charlie Dean won the toss and invited the Indian team to bat first. India did not have a good start and captain Smriti Mandhana returned to the pavilion without opening the account. Whereas, Shefali Verma could score only 2 runs. After this, Yastika Bhatia and Jemimah Rodrigues took charge and made an important partnership of 126 runs in 76 balls for the third wicket. Yastika scored 54 runs in 40 balls with the help of 9 fours and one six, while Jemimah played a strong inning of 69 runs in 40 balls. He hit 10 fours and one six in his innings.
Chasing the target of 189 runs, the England team could score only 150 runs after losing 8 wickets in 20 overs. Amy Jones batted brilliantly for the English team and played a strong inning of 67 runs in 48 balls. Jones hit 9 fours in this innings. Whereas, Heather Knight contributed 21 runs in 24 balls. In bowling, Nandini Sharma performed brilliantly for India in her debut match, taking 3 wickets for 34 runs, while Kranti Gaur took 2 wickets.