Bisht picks four, India 1-0 ahead

MUMBAI: When Ekta Bisht dropped Natalie Sciver off Poonam Yadav in the 25th over of England’s chase, it seemed India had ceded momentum in the first ODI on Friday when they had to make every little opportunity count after scoring only 202.

Bisht redeemed herself 11 overs later, running out Sciver to break her 73-run stand with skipper Heather Knight that seemed to have steered the visitors towards victory. The run out proved a turning point as the women’s ODI world champions lost their last six wickets for 25 runs to suffer a 66-run defeat.

Bisht, adjudged Player-of-thematch for her 4/25, accounted for four of those six wickets. The left-arm spinner took her last three wickets in one over to seal a memorable win, which earned the hosts a crucial two points in the ICC Championship.

Off-spinner Deepti Sharma and pacer Shikha Pandey took two wickets apiece in the lowscoring game. Veteran pacer Jhulan Goswami produced the ball of the match, castling Georgia Elwiss with a perfect off-cutter. That India defended a belowpar score on this pitch underlined the team’s bowling prowess. Since January 1, 2017 India have had the best bowling average (21.88) in women’s ODIS.

Asked to bat on a pitch that offered lateral movement to seamers, the hosts had cantered to 69 for none in 15 overs before losing a flurry of wickets to be reduced to 95/5. At this stage, India were in danger of not reaching even 150. However, Mithali Raj (44 off 74) and Taniya Bhatia (25 off 41) added 54 runs for the sixth wicket to give some respectability to the total before Jhulan Goswami (30 off 37) hit some lusty blows towards the end. Smriti Mandhana (24 off 42) and Jemimah Rodrigues (48 off 58) began cautiously, scoring only 18 runs in the first seven overs, but shifted gears after getting a hang of the conditions, accumulating 51 in the next eight. Local girl Jemimah was the more aggressive as she hit some delectable strokes around the park.

The first drinks break after 15 overs, though, brought a shift in momentum as Mandhana dragged a short ball from medium pacer Georgia Elwiss on to the stumps. Left-arm tweaker Sophie Ecclestone then weaved a spin web around Indian batsmen, giving them no room to free the arms before getting Deepti Sharma stumped by Taylor. Brief scores: India 202 in 49.4 overs (J Rodrigues 48; S Ecclestone 2/27) beat England 136 in 41 overs (N Sciver 44; E Bisht 4/25) by 66 runs.