Colombo: Riding on Jemimah Rodrigues’ career-best century and half-tons from opener Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma, India defeated a fighting South Africa by 23 runs to set up a title clash with Sri Lanka in the women’s Tri-Nation ODI series here on Wednesday.
Rodrigues’ blazing 123 off 101 balls, laced with 15 fours and a six, saw India post a huge 337 for 9 before the bowlers, led by pacer seamer Amanjot Kaur (3/59) and off-spinner Deepti Sharma (2/57) restricted the opponents to 314/7. This despite Annerie Dercksen’s fine 81-run knock and stand-in skipper Chloe Tryon’s 67.
India ended their round-robin phase with six points from four games. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have four points from three games and could garner two more points if they beat South Africa on Friday.
South Africa, after losing three consecutive games, are out of contention even though they have a match to go against Sri Lanka on Friday.
India’s batting prowess came to the fore once again as they posted a 300-plus total with 24-year-old Jemimah anchoring the team’s innings with her second ODI hundred.
She shared two vital partnerships — an 88-run stand off 99 balls with opener Smriti Mandhana (51) and a 122-run partnership off 115 balls with Deepti Sharma (93), who missed out on a ton by seven runs.
Rodrigues was finally dismissed in the 43rd over caught at point while trying to hit over the offside.
The success did bring cheers to the South African camp but the euphoria was short-lived as all-rounder Deepti took over and played a classy 84-ball innings, studded with 10 boundaries and two sixes.
Deepti was the eighth Indian batter to be dismissed but by the time she departed, with just one delivery remaining, she had done the damage.
For South Africa, seamer Masabata Klaas (2/51), Nadine de Klerk (2/54), and left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba (2/71) were the pick of the bowlers.
With a massive run-chase staring at them, South Africa lost opener Lara Goodall (7) in the second over. But Tazmin Brits (26) and Miane Smit (39) repaired the damage somewhat with a 63-run partnership for the second wicket as the opponents reached 70/2 by the 15th over.
But with India skipper Harmanpreet tactfully utilising her bowling resources, South African batters found it tough to go for the big hits, scoring most of their runs in ones and twos.
South African top-order batter Annerie Dercksen (81 off 80 balls) did try to push the scoring rate up during her 72-run partnership for the sixth wicket with stand-in skipper Chloe Tryon (67 off 43 balls), but with the asking rate creeping up steadily they just could not keep pace.
With two over remaining and South Africa on 299/6, the match was halted temporarily due to poor light. But Tryon and Nadine de Klerk came out to bat once the light improved and scored 15 more runs. But their effort was not enough on the day.
Earlier, asked to bat first, table-toppers India had a shaky start as in-form opener Pratika Rawal (1) was dismissed early, chasing a wide delivery from Nadine de Klerk and slicing it to Annerie Dercksen (1/36).
Harleen Deol too departed cheaply, dragging a delivery onto her stumps as India slumped to 18 for 2. Harmanpreet (28) played a brisk cameo, smashing six boundaries before top-edging a short ball to Shangase off Dercksen.
Mandhana and Rodrigues then stabilised the innings before the former mistimed a pull shot to deep mid-wicket off Chloe Tryon.
