Riding on Smriti Mandhana’s sensational half-century, Indian women cricket team defeated Heather Knight-led England squad by eight wickets in the sixth T20I match of the Paytm Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket tri-series being played at Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai, on Thursday.

Earlier, batting first English team were bowled out for 107 runs in 18.5 overs. Following the target, Indian women team led by Harmanpreet Kaur won the match in 16 overs with eight wickets to spare.

Though there were moments in today’s game when England squad showed some dominance, it was not enough to win the game.

From Indian side, explosive batter Smriti Mandhana and India’s ODI skipper Mithali Raj started the innings. But Mithali once again failed to impress the audience and was bowled out for six runs by Danielle Hazell.

After Mithali’s departure, 17-year-old Jemmiah Rodrigues joined Mandhana at the crease and put up 18 runs partnership with Mandhana before gifting her wicket to Danielle Hazell.

After two early dismissals skipper Harmanpreet Kaur along with Mandhana took the charge of Indian innings and led the team to victory.

Meanwhile, Smriti Mandhana completed her fifth T20I half-century.

Earlier in the day, Deepti Sharma broke the opening partnership of Danielle Wyatt and Amy Ellen Jones by sending Jones back to the pavilion at the score of 15 runs. Wyatt (31) followed soon.

Following Jones’s departure, Tammy Beaumont (10) joined Wyatt at the crease but was soon bowled out by Poonam Yadav.

After back-to-back wickets of Wyatt and Beaumont, English all-rounder Natalie Sciver along with skipper Heather Knight took the charge of England’s innings but was not able to do much as Indian spinner Radha Yadav sent Knight back to stand and Sciver was bowled out by Anuja Patil.

The English team had lost half of their wickets before even reaching the landmark of 100 runs in 13 overs. After that, it was just a matter of time that they were bowled out.

It seems Indian squad had learnt from their previous mistake as they did not let any single partnership took place and continue taking wickets.

Notably, India team is out of the tri-nation tournament.

From India, Anuja Patil took three wickets. Poonam Yadav, Radha Yadav and Deepti Sharma took two wickets each. Star all-rounder Pooja Vastraker took one wicket.

Fall of wickets:

England:

24-1 (Amy Ellen Jones, 3.2), 59-2 (Danielle Wyatt, 6.5), 61-3 (Tammy Beaumont, 7.3), 84-4 (Natalie Sciver, 10.5), 91-5 (Heather Knight, 12.1), 96-6 (Alice Davidson Richards, 13.6), 96-7 (Katie George, 14.2), 102-8 (Danielle Hazell, 16.2), 103-9 (Fran Wilson, 17.2), 107-10 (Tash Farrant, 18.5)

India:

30-1 (Mithali Raj, 3.2), 48-2 (Jemimah Rodrigues, 5.1)

Teams:

England Women (Playing XI): Danielle Wyatt, Amy Ellen Jones (wk), Tammy Beaumont, Natalie Sciver, Fran Wilson, Alice Davidson Richards, Heather Knight (c), Tash Farrant, Danielle Hazell, Alex Hartley, Katie George

India Women (Playing XI): Smriti Mandhana, Mithali Raj, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Deepti Sharma, Anuja Patil, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Poonam Yadav, Pooja Vastrakar, Jhulan Goswami, Radha Yadav