MATCH STORY
Follow UsIndian women’s team are currently in the doldrums against the Australian women’s team down under after losing the first two games and on the backfoot in the third.
However, the Indian camp did got two moments to smile in the third ODI at the WACA in Perth. The first came when Arundhati Reddy blew away the Australian top four in her eight over spell. The second came when Smriti Mandhana scored a classy century in the second innings, chasing 299.
Mandhana batted in full flow, unlike any of the other Indian batters. Despite Richa Ghosh's early loss, she kept scoring at a sedate rate in the powerplay. She even took on Ellyse Perry's short bowling when she came in to bowl in the 10th over of the game. She shared a 118(139) partnership with Harleen Deol and scored 72(75) in the partnership as Harleen struggled to get going in a struggling innings.
She didn’t get any support from the other batters as well, and by the time of her dismissal, she had scored 14 out of the 18 fours, one out of the two sixes scored by India.
In the process of bringing up her ninth three-figure score in the format, she also became the fifth player to score four or more hundreds away in ODIs. Only Meg Lanning is ahead of her, with six hundreds away from home.
Earlier this year, Mandhana scored two hundreds in ODIs against South Africa and one hundred against New Zealand at home.
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