Harleen Deol, Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal all scored fifties
Indian batter Jemimah Rodrigues recorded her first ever ODI hundred against Ireland on Sunday as a top-order blitzkrieg took India to their highest ever team total in Women’s ODIs.
Rodrigues was in fine touch as she smashed 12 boundaries in a 91-ball 102 at the SCA Stadium in Rajkot while also adding 183 runs for the third wicket with Harleen Deol (89 off 84 balls) who missed out on a maiden ODI ton of her own.
Jemimah, who had to wait for 39 ODI innings for her hundred, walked in 20th over after openers Smriti Mandhana (73) and Pratika Rawal (67) were dismissed off consecutive balls. The opening pair’s foundation of 156 runs provided the right platform for Rodrigues and Deol as they took the visiting bowlers to the cleaners.
The pair brought up the team 200 by the 29th over and quickly accelerated with a flurry of boundaries with Deol playing delectable drives through the covers. She matched the boundary count of Rodrigues with 12 as she reached her fifty in 58 balls before pressing on the gas.
Also Read: WPL Winner Becomes The Second Indian Batter To Reach 4000 Runs In Women’s ODIs
The partnership came to an end in the 48th over when Deol hit Arlene Kelly’s delivery straight to Laura Delany. Rodrigues pushed her scoring rate after that as she finally got to three figures with a boundary in the final over.
Richa Ghosh and Sayali Satghare walked off with the total at 370/5 in 50 overs, India’s highest Women’s ODI total. They bettered their score of 358/2 in 2017 at Potchefstroom, which was also against Ireland. In that game, Indian openers Deepti Sharma and Punam Raut put on a colossal opening partnership of 320 which was broken only after 45.2 overs.
Sharma scored her career-best 188 off 160 balls which included 27 boundaries and two sixes. Meanwhile, Raut played a supporting role with 116-ball 109 which included 11 boundaries.
India also have a 1-0 lead in the three-match series after winning the first ODI by six wickets at the same venue. The experimental Indian team is captained by Smriti Mandhana, after the selectors decided to rest regular skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and several other senior players for the series.
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