Boyfriend celebrates Smriti Mandhana’s century in IND vs AUS 2025 2nd ODI with adorable sticker [In Picture]

Palash Muchhal, the boyfriend of Indian women's team vice-captain Smriti Mandhana, celebrated the 29-year-old reaching her 12th ODI hundred against Australia in Mullanpur on Wednesday, September 17. Muchhal took to Instagram to share his happiness over the southpaw reaching the landmark. The century also equalled the women's ODI record for most centuries as an opener.

Mandhana got to the mark in 76 balls, which was the second fastest for India in women's ODIs.

Palash Mucchal celebrates Smriti Mandhana reaching her 12th ODI hundred on Wednesday (Photo credit: Screengrab from Instagram/PalashMucchal)

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Smriti Mandhana stars as India aim to reach 300 in 2nd ODI against Australia at Mullanpur

Aiming to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series, Australian captain Alyssa Healy won the toss and elected to field first on Wednesday. The decision, however, did not pay dividends as the opening pair of Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal put on 70 runs in less than 15 overs.

While the former fell for 25, the latter carried on and registered her 12th ODI hundred. She was dismissed in the 33rd over of the innings for 117 off 91 balls, caught by Ashleigh Gardener off Tahlia McGrath.

Middle-order batter Jemimah Rodrigues was ruled out of the rest of the series due to a viral fever and was replaced by Tejal Hasabnis in the squad. The third and final ODI of the series will take place at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Saturday, September 20.

India will play two warm-up matches before the 2025 ODI World Cup. The first of those will be against England on Thursday, September 25. The second match will be against New Zealand on Saturday, September 27. Both matches will take place the BCCI's Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru. India's ODI World Cup opener will be against Sri Lanka in Guwahati on Tuesday, September 30. At the time of writing, India were 247/6 in the 43rd over of the innings.