Good signs for women's cricket in general – Smriti Mandhana on India-W’s win against Zimbabwe-W

The Indian women’s cricket team outplayed Zimbabwe in all departments in Vadodara to claim the bragging rights of the second WODI and secure the series win. Smriti Mandhana’s captaincy reign got off to a flying start, winning a second consecutive series with a game to spare.

Talking at the post-match presentation, Mandhana opened up on the individual performances that defined the win for India. Harmanpreet Kaur and Deepti Sharma put up impressive shows with centuries while the latter was also brilliant with the ball, claiming three wickets. A young Vaishnavi Sharma was the pick of the Indian bowling lot with figures of 4/39, leading the bowling charge for the Women in Blue.

Lauding the individual performances, Mandhana said, “Today's biggest positive, from 19/2, to get 300-plus - credit to Harman, Pratika, and Deepti the way they batted. Was brilliant to watch. She's (Deepti) been batting brilliantly. Even in the ODI World Cup, she had a lot of match-winning knocks for us. Unfortunately her number is such that she doesn't get long overs, but really happy the way she went about it today and got her hundred. Vaishnavi was brilliant, she was varying her pace and changing the angles. She knows her game very well which is always good to have as a captain. And the other bowlers chipped in as well.”

Highlighting the conditions in Vadodara, Mandhana said, “In white ball cricket, I think 4-5 overs is still a long spell considering the heat. Of course today it was not that hot. Otherwise as well, you don't want the batters to get used to it. The kind of quality we have in our bowling line-up, they can come in and bowl in good areas any time. As a batter you don't want bowlers changing.”

She concluded by adding, “Zimbabwe were brilliant in the field and they stopped nearly 20-30 runs, especially in the point area. Brilliant to watch. I mean it's really hot out there in the afternoon. But the kind of trying and diving for every ball even in the 50th over. I don't think they've dropped any catch in the last two series which is very nice. Good signs for women's cricket in general.”