THE HUNDRED ROUNDUP
Follow UsIt has been 22 days and 29 matches in the third edition of cricket’s newest format - The Hundred. With less than a week left before it ends, the women's competition in the Hundred started in a subdued fashion with four out of the first seven games being rained out. However, in the two weeks that followed, it was lit up by Tammy Beaumont (who scored the only century of this edition), Georgia Adams, and Smriti Mandhana, amongst others.
With the last week of the Women’s competition already underway and playoffs three league games away, let's take a look at how the four Indian women participating in this edition of the tournament have fared.
Star Smriti sparkles in The Hundred, again!
Smriti continued her brilliant record in The Hundred this season as well. She has scored 226 runs in 7 innings at an SR of 133.72. Her 70* innings reminded one and all of not only her quintessential off-side elegance but also her powerplay.
This shouldn’t have come across as a surprise at all, as apart from being the all time third highest run scorer in The Hundred, she has an average of 43.22 while striking at 144.07 in England in WT20Is.
Credit to her impactful performances in the season, Southern Braves have managed to qualify for the playoffs. The remaining league games in the week will decide if the team coached by Charlotte Edwards would directly go through the finals or will have to pass through the sudden death experience of the eliminator.
Jolly Jemimah fails to impress
Jemimah lit up the first season of The Hundred where she played for the Northern Superchargers and eventually made a comeback into the Indian national team on the back of a scintillating batting display in overseas conditions.
However, things have been downhill for her in the 100-ball game since then. She missed out a majority of the second season due to an injury, and in this current one has scored only 113 runs after 7 matches at an average of 16.44 and SR of 115.30. Her team has made it to the playoffs already so a shot at redemption awaits her later this week.
No Wizardry from Harry at The Hundred
Harmanpreet Kaur played like a queen in the inaugural edition of the WPL, winning the tournament through a chain of dominating performances with the bat. Even for the Indian women in WT20Is, she has been in great form. However, she couldn’t get a run in this season of The Hundred even if she begged for it outside Kings Cross.
After 6 innings in the season, India’s first-ever women cricketer to play in a foreign league has managed to score just 72 runs well below run a ball. It's almost as if she refused to perform because she was not the captain of Trent Rockets, who are already eliminated from the playoff race.
Powerful Richa misses fire-power
After being slotted in as a replacement for Australia’s Georgia Redmayne in the London Spirit team, India’s premier wicketkeeper had to sit and watch the rain play spoilsport in the first week. Two of the eight games of her team have had no results. If it was the rain earlier, later it was her lack of touch as she failed to display the power hitting she is known for.
She managed to score only 78 runs at just above run a ball. However, her keeping showed signs of significant improvement, as she picked up 6 catches, with one of her fantastic diving catches in front of the wicket making big rounds on microblogging app X.
Larger Picture
The next big tournament for Indian women, The Asian Games in China, is approaching fast and these games would have given the four most important Indian batters in the team much required game time. However, except Smriti all of them have struggled so far, showing signs of being out of touch with cricket. That dream of an Indian women's team finishing on top of the continent, and the national anthem playing in China doesn’t seem like having a smooth transition to reality.
