Rajeshwari Gayakwad’s three wicket haul and Harmanpreet Kaur and Pooja Vastrakar’s all-around performances enabled India win by 39 runs, sweeping the three-match ODI series in Sri Lanka, and completing their first round of the IWC 2022–25 with all six points available.
A 97-run partnership between Harmanpreet and Vastrakar for the seventh wicket helped India recover from a mid-innings slump to score a difficult 255/9 from their allotted overs. The high-flying Sri Lankan counterpart, Chamari Athapaththu, was then dismissed by the India skipper in the eleventh over to put an end to the chase before the rest of the bowling staff took over to limit them to 216 in response.
India lost vice-captain Smriti Mandhana quickly in the seventh over after being given the opportunity to bat first, but Shafali Verma (49) and Yastika Bhatia (30) put up a 59-run partnership to keep them in the game. While Verma admittedly made a conscious effort, she admittedly relied more on strike-rotation in her 50-ball 49, which only had five boundaries, while Bhatia, who scored 30 off 38, was the aggressor in this alliance. Inoka Ranaweera was able to break the stand with the wicket of the left-hander during a brief window of return, but Rashmi de Silva struck again in one over to dismiss both Verma and Harleen Deol, as India lost three wickets for only five runs.
Harmanpreet had only momentarily stopped the fast fall; however, India lost two more wickets quickly, dropping to 124/6 in the 27th over. At that point, Vastrakar, who finished eighth, teamed up with the captain to save India. In this stand, Harmanpreet played the decisive role. She did not hold back on her shots, smashing seven boundaries and a few sixes in her 88-ball 75 to push India over the 200-run threshold. After the skipper left, Vastrakar took over and raised her third ODI fifty. She struck Athapaththu for a pair of sixes in the penultimate over to end with an unbeaten 56 in India’s 255/9 total, which at one point appeared improbable.
Brief scores: India 255/9 in 50 overs (Harmanpreet Kaur 75, Pooja Vastrakar 56*, Shafali Verma 49; Inoka Ranaweera 2-22) beat Sri Lanka 216 all out in 47.3 overs (Nilakshi de Silva 48*, Chamari Athapaththu 44; Rajeshwari Gayakwad 3-36, Pooja Vastrakar 2-33, Meghna Singh 2-32) by 39 runs.
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