NEWS
Follow UsThe Indian women’s team plundered records in Vadodara on Tuesday, scoring 358/5 - their joint-highest total in ODIs. Harleen Deol played a huge role in that, managing 115 off just 103 deliveries, hitting as many as 16 fours in the innings as India raced to a 115-run victory to take an unassailable lead in the series.
It was particularly impressive as Harleen, who recovered from her knee surgery earlier this year, registered the third-highest score for an Indian Women's batter batting at three or lower.
“Definitely it is a very proud moment for me, waiting for it for a long time, just enjoy it,” she said in the post-match presentation. “When I came into bat, I just had that much time, I thought of playing some cricket. The more I play, the more shots I can play, that was on my mind, nothing else.
“When you are batting well, it's always easy no matter where you are batting. The last match I played, I thought of continuing that flow. Means a lot to me, when I was in rehab, I was thinking of scoring a century day in and day out.”
Apart from Harleen, the biggest positive for India in the series was how Pratika Rawal batted. Pratika, who made her debut in the first game of the series, is a psychology major from Delhi but has been plundering runs in domestic cricket for a while. In the first two games of her career, she already has 116 runs in her kitty.
“I just did what I did in the last match, play on merit. The wicket was better than the last match, the bounce was good, it was coming nicely onto the bat, whatever was in my slot, I tried to hit as hard as possible,” Rawal said in the presentation.
“He [Amol Muzumdar, head coach] changed something in my grip in my last training session which helped me a lot. I was not able to hold my nerves in the previous game, I was more confident today, that was the difference,” the Delhi batter added.
India have already wrapped up the three-match series, having won the first two games. The third ODI will be played at the same venue on December 27 (Friday).
