Sophia Dunkley guides England to five-wicket win after Kate Cross five-for

Raj’s 57th ODI fifty helps India go past the 200-mark; Ecclestone picks up another three-for for England

India Women 221 (Raj 59, Verma 44, Cross 5-34, Ecclestone 3-33) vs England Women

After losing the toss, India showed better intent with the bat than the first ODI. Openers Smriti Mandhana and Verma mixed caution with aggression against the new-ball tandem of Anya Shrubsole and Katherine Brunt, who employed a generous use of short deliveries while making use of the movement off the pitch and in the air.

The fifty opening stand came up in the 11th over. In the next over, the introduction of a third pacer, in Cross, gave England their breakthrough and Cross the first of her five wickets. Mandhana, bowled in the first match trying to late cut a good-length, scrambled seam delivery towards the third man, chopped on a similar away-going ball in a similar attempt, this time the movement upon landing only slightly more, the pace less.

England had turned to spin as early as the ninth over, with left-arm spinner Ecclestone bowling six overs for 20 runs and picking up the wicket of Verma in her first spell. Six shy of a maiden ODI fifty and parched of runs in the first three balls of the 17th over, Verma trotted down the pitch but was stumped adeptly by Amy Jones as Ecclestone dragged the line of the on-a-fourth-stump-line delivery slightly short to have Verma miss her cut.

No. 3 Jemimah Rodgriues, replacing Punam Raut in the XI that saw two additional changes, struck two emphatic fours in Ecclestone’s fifth over. That’s all she could score in her 15-ball stay before offering up a leading edge off Cross down the wicket for Brunt to complete an easy take.

After India slipped from 56 for 0 to 77 for 3 in the space of 29 balls, Raj and her deputy, Harmanpreet Kaur, strung a fourth-wicket stand of 68 runs to lift India to 145 for 4 by the 34th over. It was the duo’s third fifty-plus stand in their last four ODI innings together and their 15th fifty partnership in ODIs overall. Their collaborative effort ended with Cross eliciting a cavalier hoick off Kaur that ended up in a benign top edge for Cross to gobble up.

The next-best partnership was worth just 15, between Raj and Deepti Sharma, whose flick found Sophia Dunkley in the deep and Cross making giant strides on her merry march to a memorable outing. Sharma’s wicket capped off Cross’ four-for, the first one by an England bowler in a home ODI since Anya Shrubsole’s epochal five-for in the 2017 World Cup final at Lord’s.

That India could add only an additional 71 runs in the last 15 overs was down to Cross, Ecclestone and Natalie Sciver’s relentlessness. Cross completed her five-for with the wicket of Sneh Rana, who made the XI at the expense of fellow allrounder Pooja Vastrakar. Eliciting a leading edge similar to Rodrigues’, Rana’s dismissal had England in a group hug, and India further away from the 250 mark.

Ecclestone followed up her 3 for 40 in the first game with 3 for 33 in the second, Taniya Bhatia her second pick at Taunton. In Shikha Pandey, Sciver picked up her 50th ODI wicket.

Raj found support towards the end of the innings from No. 10 Jhulan Goswami, who pulled Brunt twice with aplomb in her unbeaten run-a-ball 19. Regular dismissals at the other end meant Raj dropped the scoring pace somewhat as she neared her fifty, a highlights-worthy compilation of back-foot punches, cuts, trademark cover drives, and a failed attempt at pulling a superb Cross bouncer in the 36th over.

On 48, Raj copped the short delivery on the front of her helmet’s grille, but evaded any serious apparent consequences. She brought up her half-century, 57th in the format, seven balls later and added another nine runs to her tally off the next 12 balls.

A Brunt bouncer pulled by Goswami in the 47th over led to Raj being short of her ground at the wicketkeeper’s end as the Indian pair attempted a third run. The run-out was courtesy a terrific throw by Dunkley, who recovered after a misfield at the deep square boundary, and an equally good take by Jones, who was involved in four dismissals on the day.

A 29-run tenth-wicket stand between Goswami and Poonam Yadav, who was picked over Ekta Bisht as the second frontline spin-bowling option, dragged India past 200. Ecclestone bowled Yadav for a 15-ball 10 off the final delivery of the innings with India bettering their 201 tally in the first match to 221 in the second.