All-round England crush India Women in the first T20I 

A dominating performance by England Women helped them to beat India by 41 runs in the first T20I played at Basapara Stadium, Guwahati on Monday. After being invited into bat, England posted a challenging total and then defended the target with ease.

The Indian stand-in captain Smriti Mandhana won the toss and decided to field first. England openers Danielle Wyatt and Tammy Beaumont got the team off to a flying start with 45 runs scored in the first 6 overs. After the power play overs, both batters continued to put pressure on Indian bowling line up. Shikha Pandey got breakthrough by dismissing Wyatt for 35. The England openers added 89 runs in 11.3 overs.

Beaumont continued her aggressive approach as England captain Heather Knight took on Indian bowlers with a quick fire 40 off 20 balls. Beaumont reached her fifty off 47 balls while Knight smashed Arundhati Reddy for 5 successive boundaries. England posted 160 for 4 at the end of 20 overs.

Chasing a stiff target of 161 runs, the Indian opening pair of Harleen Deol and Mandhana began well adding 21 runs, before 3 wickets in quick succession fell to put pressure on Indian batting line up. Mandhana, Rodrigues could not contribute many runs. At the end of 6 overs, India were 31 for 3. Mithali Raj and Veda Krishna Murthy also went back cheaply.

The Indian batters could not keep up with the required run rate. Deepti Sharma and Shikha Pandey added an unbeaten 43 runs for the 7th wicket as India finished on 119 for 6 in 20 overs. This is India’s fourth successive T20I loss after being whitewashed by New Zealand.

England Women: 4/160 in 20 overs (Beaumont 62, Heather Knight 40, Wyatt 35, Radha Yadav 2/35) beat India: 6/119 in 20 overs (Shikha Pandey 23*, Deepti Sharma 22*, Brunt 2/21, Smith 2/22) by 41 runs.