Star India batter Smriti Mandhana said that she was delighted to contribute to team’s victory after her match winning hundred against South Africa in the first ODI on Sunday, June 16. The southpaw played a scintillating knock of 117 (127) with the help of 12 fours and a six and guided her team to a good score of 265/8 in their allotted 50 overs.
The 27-year-old ran out of partners early in the innings with India reeling at 99/5 after opting to bat first. However, she got support of Deepti Sharma (37 off 48) lower down the order with the duo adding 81 runs off 92 balls for the sixth wicket. Following her match-winning performance, the opening batter expressed delight on contributing to her team’s victory. Mandhana also mentioned that it was difficult for her not go aerial coming from playing T20 cricket.
“We won the match so really happy that I could contribute, important to start the tournament well, we got 100+ win, nothing better than that. As I said earlier, it was really a task not to go aerial and go for the grounded shots, we have played a lot of T20 cricket, today the need was for partnerships, credit to Deepti and Pooja for getting those. It was playing the situation. In one-day cricket and white-ball cricket, there will be days when one or two batters will carry the team. My role was to take it deep, once I was set, having got to 30-40. I don’t think anyone got out after getting set and that was the role given to me,” said Mandhana in the post-match interview.
Asha Sobhana stars with the ball
Coming back to the match, after Mandhana and Sharma’s partnership, Pooja Vastrakar played a handy knock of 31* (42) to help India finish on 265. Ayabonga Khaka (3/47) was the pick of the bowlers for South Africa while Masabata Klaas (2/51) picked two wickets. In reply, Indian bowlers were all over the Proteas women right from the word go bundling them out for just 122 and winning the game by 143 runs.
Wrist spinner Asha Sobhana starred on her ODI debut picking 4/21 in four 8.4 overs while Deepti Sharma picked 2/10 in six overs. As a result, India took a 1-0 lead in the series with the second ODI set to be played on Wednesday, June 19.