Blistering Rodrigues fifty gives India unassailable lead
COLOMBO: Young Jemimah Rodrigues scored a power-packed 40-ball 57 as India women won the third T20 International against Sri Lanka by five wickets here on Saturday.
India now enjoy an unassailable 2-0 lead in the five-match series with the second encounter being a washout.
Opting to field, India restricted the islanders to 131/8 with Shashikala Siriwardene (35) and Nilakshi de Silva (31) being the main contributors. In reply, India comfortably chased down the target with 10 balls to spare.
For the visitors, rookie medium pacer Arundhati Reddy kept things tight with figures of 2/19 in four overs. Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur also chipped in with a couple of wickets in the penultimate over.
Rodrigues then anchored the chase with six boundaries and two huge sixes, adding 53 runs for the fourth wicket with Harmanpreet (24).
The two sixes came off pacers -- one off Udeshika Prabodhani and other off Sreepali Weerakoddy.
Rodrigues had scored 36 in the first T20 International.
While Harmanpreet and Rodrigues were both dismissed in the same over by Chamari Atapattu, India didn’t panic with only 19 runs to get.
Veda Krishnamurthy (11*) and Anuja Patil (8*) completed the chase without much difficulty.
It was Patil, who hit a boundary off Prabodhani, to bring up their second win in the series.
The fourth match will be played in Colombo on Monday.
India had earlier won the three-match ODI series 2-1.
Brief Scores: Sri Lanka 131/8 in 20 overs (S Siriwardene 35, N de Silva 31, A Reddy 2/19, H Kaur 2/3) vs India 132/5 in 18.2 overs (J Rodrigues 57, H Kaur 24 off 19). India won by five wickets.