India wins series against Sri Lanka: Renuka Singh Thakur Shines
India wins series against Sri Lanka: Renuka Singh Thakur Shines. A four-wicket haul by Renuka Singh Thakur and a record opening partnership between Shafali Verma (71*) and Smriti Mandhana (94*) helped India to record a 10-wicket victory and a 2-0 scoreboard against Sri Lanka in the Pallekele match.
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Toss: India decided to ball first in the 2nd ODI and kept the team the same that fielded during the first ODI. Sri Lanka included Vishmi Gunaratne & Ama Kanchana in the team.
Bowling partnership
Renuka Singh Thakur gave a stunning performance in her fourth ODI.
She was assisted by Meghana Singh and bowled out the Sri Lanka team with an average total. Thakur got three wickets in the 1st ODI match with the host’s total of 171.
Thakur dismissed three wickets of Sri Lanka within seven overs. Meghana bagged the wicket of Chamari Athapaththu, the Sri Lanka Captain, and the host’s score was 42/4 in the 16th over. Meghana later dismissed Nilakshi de Silva, making the host team weaker.
Kavisa Dilhari and Anushka Sanjeewani were run out, and Deepti Sharma ended the tail with 2 wickets of Achini Kulasuriya and Inoka Ranaweera.
A solid bowling performance restricted Sri Lanka to only 11 fours in the innings and bowled out at 173.
Lower-order batting resistance by Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s score of 173 would get lowered further if Ama Kanchana failed to show resistance. Kanchana, batted at No.7 when Dilhari bowled in 25th over when it was only 81 runs on the scoreboard.
She defended and kept an eye to save her wicket with the regular ticking of the scoreboard with singles. She hit some boundaries without taking a risk and was making a slow shift towards a half-century. She scored a solid 42-runs in partnership with de Silva 7th-wicket stand
She ended up at 47* due to a lack of a partner.
5th-highest partnership record opening stand
For India, the target was 174 and it was not that challenging for the India openers they chased it fast, to win under 26 overs. Initially, Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana played cautiously but soon took an aggressive mode.
India’s reached 50 on the scoreboard in the 9th over, and there was no looking back after that. Sri Lanka’s on-field performance remained poor, and batters lost many chances to score big.
After touching fifty, Mandhana geared up with Verma, and they targeted to complete the match with no loss of wicket.
The 174-run stand was recorded as the 5th-highest partnership for India and the highest against squad Sri Lanka.
With the win, India has not only gained an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match ODI series but also got two crucial points taking their total to four in the ICC Women’s Championship 2022-25.