Kumar Bahukhandi
Ahmedabad : India defeated New Zealand by 6 wickets in the third ODI. With this, Indian women have won the three-match ODI series by 2-1. In the third match of the series played in Ahmedabad, New Zealand scored 232 runs while batting first. In response, Team India won both the match and the series with 34 balls remaining.
New Zealand won the toss and decided to bat first. Indian bowling dominated the Kiwi team in the beginning as New Zealand lost 5 wickets for 88 runs. After that, a 64-run partnership between Brooke Halliday and Isabella Gage helped the visiting team make a comeback. Brooke played an innings of 88 runs, apart from her no other player from the New Zealand team could even touch the 40-run mark. Right-arm leg-spin bowler Priya Mishra, who made her international debut in this series, took 2 important wickets.
Smriti Mandhana could not perform well in the T20 World Cup. She did not play any special innings in the first two ODIs against New Zealand. But she scored 100 runs in the third and last match of the series. Smriti scored 100 runs in 122 balls, during which 10 fours also came off her bat. This innings was very important for Smriti in terms of returning to good form. Apart from her, captain Harmanpreet Kaur played an unbeaten innings of 59 runs in 63 balls.
