Women’s Cricket: India Beat New Zealand By 6 Wickets In Final Match, Win Three-Match Series 2-1
In women’s cricket, India clinched three match series 2-1 against New Zealand as the hosts defeated the Kiwis by six wickets in the final match this evening. Chasing the target of 233 runs at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad,
India concluded the match in 45th over with help of Smriti Mandhana’s century. Earlier, electing to bat first, New Zealand scored of 232 runs with the help of Brooke Halliday’s 86 runs. Deepti Sharma of the host team claimed three wickets.
The opening match of the series was won by the women in blue, while the visitors bounced back in the second match, registering a 76-run victory over the hosts.
India seal the series 2-1 and they’ll be very pleased with today’s effort. New Zealand simply weren’t at their best today. Most of their batters just couldn’t get in, their running looked dodgy and it needed a superb knock from Brooke Halliday to get them up to 232. When they came out to bowl, they simply didn’t hit the right areas and there were a lot of loose deliveries.
They were very much unlike themselves in the field too – all signs pointing to some fatigue that may well have crept up on them after a long World Cup campaign and two hard-fought ODIs here right after that. India just sauntered through this game relatively unbothered. That’s it from us, this is Anurag Hegde, Saurabh Shankar and Vinod Kumar signing off. Take care and goodbye.
Deepti Sharma | Player of the Series: [Translated from Hindi] I enjoy myself on the field and that’s what takes the pressure off me. Try to keep it simple. Just wanted to believe in myself, such matches happen so was just thinking about how I can contribute. Had faith in myself and was able to do even better today. Wicket was such that it was skidding nicely sometimes, as a bowler you had to vary pace. Needed to consider how the batters were playing as well, varied my pace accordingly. Mindset will be the same, would like to do even better in future matches.
Harmanpreet Kaur | India Captain: As I said in the morning, we discussed a lot of things and really happy we could execute today. Whenever we play, we always want to give our 100% but sometimes things don’t go your way. As a professional cricketer you have to keep pushing yourself and keep going. We discussed these things in the team meeting so really happy we could come back after that loss in the last game.
Would like to give credit to Smriti, she was struggling early on but she managed to get runs. It was important for us as we wanted to win this series at any cost. Really happy about our partnership. Always talking about our fielding, that’s an area we need to keep working hard. We are working hard but just waiting for the results till the time we can be the best fielding side.
Smriti Mandhana | Player of the Match: Really pleased to get the series win. As I said in the first game, it has been a tough 1 and a half months for this team. The first two games didn’t go my way so really happy I could get a score today. It was more about controlling my shots, you don’t bat the same way everyday. You’re in the best frame some days and you’re not other days.
Had to be little hard on myself early on and wait for the first 10 overs to go before taking the game on. For me what works is the harder way. Need to do it for the team first. Getting out early means I’ve let the team down and that thought doesn’t let me sleep well. As a cricketer you are going to get highs and lows, you need to keep the routine the same.
Sophie Devine | New Zealand Captain: Incredibly proud of our players. We were down to just 12 players after losing our best player (Amelia Kerr) to injury. In difficult conditions, we did really well so very proud of our group. We fought really hard and now it’s time to head home and have a bit of a break. We’re building some confidence of getting a score even if we lose 2-3 early. 232 wasn’t enough but it was a good score.
The conditions were tough and the team showed great character and resilience. Tried to take the same blueprint from the World Cup, attacking the stumps is quite effective in this part of the world. Everyone stepped up, Tahuhu was running in on one leg. To keep fighting was great, we weren’t good enough but we’ll go home and reflect and come back stronger.
Yastika Bhatia: There is always pressure when you play for the country. Our communication was to take some time, when you stay on the wicket, the runs will come. I wanted to play my shots but at the same time didn’t want to lose my wicket. We just had a plan to keep wickets in hand, we knew that dew might also come and as we go deep, we had a good chance to win. Initially when we were bowling it was turning, when we were batting there wasn’t that much turn so it eased out a bit. I have put in a lot of hardwork behind the scenes and am grateful it has come good.
