Mumbai: Spinners finally came to party to give India their first win in the Women's Twenty20 Tri-Series at Brabourne stadium on Thursday. The Harmanpreet Kaur led side ended the tournament with comfortable eight-wicket win over England.
Slow bowlers Anuja Patil, Radha Yadav, Deepti Sharma and Poonam Yadav foxed the England middle-order batswomen on a pitch that offered some assistance to them. The spinners shared nine wickets between them after Pooja Vastrakar removed opener Amy Jones. Man-of-the-match Anuja picked three wickets while other three slow bowlers picked two wickets apiece.
England, who had chased 198 in their previous match against India, were going on nicely with second match centurion Danielle Wyatt in full control. The turnaround came when off-spinner Deepti dismissed Wyatt with a reflexive catch on her own bowling. The visitors who were bowled out for 96 against Australia on Wednesday managed 107 in 18.5 overs on Thursday after staying pretty at 59/1 in seventh over. Wyatt's wicket after she top scored with 22-ball 31 brought out another England collapse. Indian spinners were getting firm grip from the pitch and England lower order had no answers.
India led by opener Smriti Mandhana (62 not out) chased down the target in 15.4 overs. Mandhana notched her third 60 plus score of the tournament. She started with three back-to-back boundaries of Katie George. Tamsin Beaumont dropped a sitter in the same over when Mandhana was on 13. She sizzled in company of composed Harmanpreet (20 not out) to steer India home with 60-run partnership for third wicket after Mithali Raj and Jemimah Rodrigues gave away their wickets cheaply.
Brief scores
England 107 in 18.5 overs (Danielle Wyatt 31, Anuja Patil 3/21) lost to India 108/2 in 15.4 overs (Smriti Mandhana 62 n.o, Harmanpreet Kaur 20 n.o, Danielle Hazell 2/17)
