Indian women’s cricket team opening batter Smriti Mandhana has started the New Year in a great way by scoring a match-winning century as India Women thrashed the hosts New Zealand women in the first ODI of three-match ODI series at Napier.
In the Napier ODI, which was also the first ODI for India Women in the new calendar year, New Zealand women were bundled out for just 192 runs. In reply, the openers Jemimah Rodrigues and Smriti Mandhana provided a solid start and put the 190-run partnership for the opening wicket that easily set a nine-wicket victory for the visiting side who chased that target in 33 overs.
The 22-year-old Mandhana hit her fourth ODI century knock in that game as she scored 105 off 104 balls (9 fours and 3 sixes), the second highest ODI knock by an Indian women cricketer against New Zealand women.
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She said according to PTI, “I have a thing of getting out in the 70s and 80s, so I had to talk to myself, ‘don’t hit any rash shots, don’t hit any lofted shots, just play in singles and doubles’ I’m really happy with that aspect.”
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While the visiting side just needed three runs to win, Mandhana lost her wicket through a caught out. Talking about her dismissal, the young cricketer told that she would be a lot happier to successfully finish that game.
Mandhana added, “I was able to stick in and guide the team through. Again, if I’d scored three runs I would have been a lot happier.”
One day before that game, the Indian men’s cricket team thrashed the hosts’ side New Zealand men’s cricket team in their series-opener of the five-match ODI series at the same venue. Mandhana told that they experienced the men’s game before coming to play the series opener and decided to keep the game simple.
She said, “Initially we just played according to the merit of the ball. We just had to react to the ball, because they had good pacers. The plan was to see how the new ball was doing. This was the first time we were batting in New Zealand, and we didn’t really know. We watched a bit of the men’s match and also how the first innings went. So we decided to just keep it simple, play according to the merit of the ball.”
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Mandhana was also confident that they could chase the bigger total if that flow continued.
She added, “The way we were going, I think we would have been able to chase 280-300.”
