Smriti Mandhana once again starred for India Women against South Africa Women with a big century. Adding to her indelible efforts, captain Harmanpreet Kaur also scored a century pushing Indian score above 320 at Bengaluru in second ODI. Already Indian team won the first match and needed to win this second one to register a bilateral series win against SA-W.
Earlier, South Africa Women won the toss and elected to field first. Smriti Mandhana started playing from where she left off in the first one. She kept going at one end while other batters struggled at the other end. Captain Harmanpreet Kaur joined Smriti and both of them have put on 171-run partnership for the 3rd wicket.
In the meantime, Smriti Mandhana scored 136 runs from 120 balls and Harmanpreet Kaur finished the innings on a high scoring 103 runs from 88 balls. Richa Ghosh assisted her scoring 25 runs from 13 balls. Hence, India Women have put on 325/3 score on the board. Nonkululeko Mlaba(2/51) and Masabata Klaas(1/67) took wickets for SA.
In the chase, South Africa women captain Laura Wolvaardt scored a big century taking the match till the last ball. She scored 135 runs from 135 balls. While Indian bowlers put SA under trouble at 67/3, Marizanne Kapp joined her captain. Both have them have put on 164-run partnership for 4th wicket taking them close to the score.
Marizanne Kapp scored 114 runs from 94 balls. But after she got out, Wolvaardt couldn’t really finish the match in SA favour. Nadine de Klerk(28) tried her best but in anxiety inducing last over, India Women came on top by 4 runs. SA-W scored only 321/6 and lost the thriller after coming too close. India Women have attained unassailable lead in series by 2-0 scoreline.