Indian spinners and Smriti Mandhana completely outshined West Indies in their second-match of the ICC Woman Cricket World Cup. After winning the toss and electing to bowl first Indian bowlers did very well to restrict West Indies woman at 183, “the favourite score in a India-West Indies World Cup match”. West Indies bowler came back hard at the Indian batsmen with their fast, short-pitched bowling.
Indian frontline pacers, Jhulan Goswami and Shikha Pandey looked struggling in the middle for the first six-overs. than captain Mithali turned to her spiners and the decision paid off on the very first ball. Ekta Bisht, in the seventh over, the left-arm orthodox bowler dismissed Felicia Walters, who was contineously struggling in the middle. Following which Hayley Matthews and Stafanie Taylor had a partnership of 40-runs for the 2nd wicket. After Mona Meshram taking the wicket Matthews, West Indies was struggling at 91/6.
Than Mandhana continued her innings of 90 runs off just 72 balls, which she played against England in the last match and scored her first world cup hundred, second of her ODI carrier with the help of 13 fours and two sixes. Captain Mithali Raj and Smriti had a partnership of 108-runs for the third wicket and made sure that India will have no struggle chasing the target of 183, before Mithali got out to mid-off, four-runs short of her 8th consecutive fifty.
Mandhana, who hails from Sangli, a town in Maharashtra also made history last year when she became the only Indian cricketer to be named in the first ever ICC Women’s Team of the Year 2016.
While India’s captain cool was again spotted reading a reading a book before coming into bat.
The book is back! #MithaliRaj pic.twitter.com/6fF2wB9ULw
— Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) June 29, 2017
