Katherine foils India bid for sweep
MUMBAI: It was a dead rubber but from a cricketing point of view, it was the most entertaining match of the series. Having conceded the series three days earlier, England held their nerves to avoid a whitewash, posting a nail-biting, two-wicket victory over India at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday.
Pacer Katherine Brunt claimed a five-wicket haul (5/28) to derail India’s innings before returning to biff a 20-ball 18 to help the visitors win with seven balls to spare. India scored 205/8 and England reached 208/8 in 48.5 overs.
After Jemimah Rodrigues played a Brunt delivery onto her stumps the second ball of the game, India recovered well to reach 129 for one thanks to Smriti Mandhana (66 --74b, 8x4, 1x6) and Poonam Raut (56 -- 97b, 7x4).
It was then that Brunt was brought back into the attack and she produced a hostile spell. She claimed four wickets in her fiveover spell as India lost six wickets for 21 runs to be reduced to 150 for seven.
The 33-year-old first deceived Mandhana into pulling straight to Danielle Wyatt at deep square leg before castling Raut three balls later. In her next over, she trapped Mona Meshram in front and beat the defences of skipper Mithali Raj (7) to complete her five-for.
Vital contributions by Deepti Sharma (27* -- 49b) and Shikha Pandey (26 -- 41b) and their 47-run eighth-wicket stand helped India cross 200.
Jhulan Goswami did what she does best—hit the deck, generate bounce and make life hard for the batsmen. She removed Amy Jones, Tammy Beaumont and Lauren Winfield, reducing England to 39/3. The visitors also lost in-form Natalie Sciver and Sarah Taylor to be reeling at 49/5.
England skipper Heather Knight (47 -- 63b, 6x4) and Wyatt (56, 82b, 7x4) raised 69 runs for the sixth wicket before Georgia Elwiss (33 -- 53b) took the side home with Brunt. Though India won the series, they missed out on two crucial points in the ICC Championship. They had lost the dead rubber in New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka.
“We are not playing Pakistan and we just have one more team to play, West Indies. We pretty much lost eight (possible) points when we were in a position to grab those 2 points in all those series,” Mithali said.
BRIEF SCORES: India 205/8 in 50 overs (S Mandhana 66, P Raut 56, K Brunt 5/28) lost to England 206/8 in 48.5 overs (D Wyatt 56, H Knight 47, G Elwiss 33*, J Goswami 3/41, S Pandey 2/34) by 2 wickets. India won series 2-1