Credit: BCCI
On Wednesday, July 9, the Indian women’s cricket team defeated England by six wickets with 18 balls to spare in the fourth T20I at Old Trafford in Manchester, to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match series. It was a complete team performance from India in the fourth Women’s T20I (WT20I) of the series with the bat, ball, and in the field, and Radha Yadav was given the player of the match (POTM) award for registering figures of 2/15 in her four-over quota.
For the unversed, after winning the toss, England captain Tammy Beaumont decided to bat first, but her decision didn’t turn out to be a good one for her team. The top order wasn’t able to find the ropes consistently enough on a pitch at Old Trafford providing a bit of assistance to the bowlers, and they could only score 38/2 in the six overs of powerplay, including the wickets of openers Danni Wyatt-Hodge (5 off 7) and Sophia Dunkley (22 off 19).
Alice Capsey (18 off 21) and Tammy Beaumont (20 off 19) shared a 36-run stand for the third wicket, but they could only strike it at around a 100 before losing their wickets to Shree Charani and Radha Yadav respectively. Following that, none of the middle order batters from England could manage to score much or at a fast rate, finding themselves at 101/7 in 17 overs before a couple of lusty blows from Sophie Ecclestone and Issy Wong helped them get up to 126/7.
In the run chase, Shafali Verma got off to a flyer for India in the fourth WT20I, scoring 31 off just 19 balls with six fours, to put her team in command. Smriti Mandhana scored 32 off 31 with five fours to control the Indian innings in the first half of their run chase before Jemimah Rodrigues and captain Harmanpreet Kaur shared a 48-run stand for the third wicket with a run-a-ball innings, to put their team on the brink of victory.
After Harmanpreet Kaur and Amanjot Kaur lost their wickets in quick succession, Richa Ghosh struck a boundary at the start of her innings before Jemimah Rodrigues hit the winning runs, to secure a WT20I series win for India over England.
