India women thrash England in inconsequential tie

MUMBAI: For India women, it was a case of joining the party too late. After suffering three successive defeats, the hosts produced a ruthless show to trounce England by eight wickets in the last league match of the women’s T20 international tri-series on Thursday.

The result of the match was academic as England and Australia had already booked their berths in the Saturday’s final.

Spinners were stars in the win with Anuja Patil (3/21), Radha Yadav (2/16), Poonam Yadav (2/17) and Deepti Sharma (2/24) sharing nine wickets among them to roll England over for 107 in 18.5 overs. Smriti Mandhana then came out all guns blazing and continued her fine form to slam a half-century as India romped home with more than four overs to spare. Mandhana was well supported by Harmanpreet Kaur, who remained unbeaten on 20.

England started well with Danielle Wyatt taking on pacers in power play overs. After the loss of opening partner Amy Jones, Wyatt took England past 50 in no time before she fell to a spectacular catch by Deepti Sharma off her own bowling. Wyatt’s dismissal proved to be the turning point as the visitors lost their last nine wickets for the addition of only 48 runs with some superb bowling from Indian tweakers. Brief scores: England 107 (D Wyatt 31, A Patil 3/21, R Yadav 2/16, ) lost to India 108/2 in 15.4 overs (S Mandhana 62*, D Hazell 2/17) by 8 wickets.