Smriti Mandhana slayed a hapless Hong Kong bowling attack on way to a record breaking hundred and Deepti Sharma (3-9 ) continued her form to wreck havoc with the ball as India defeated Hong Kong by 137 runs in their Women’s Asia Cup match on Thursday.
India raced to 193 for five after Mandhana (124 off 64) made up for a sedate start rather quickly and shared a 74-run stand with opening partner Shafali Verma (28 off 17) to set the tone for the innings.
Mandhana surpassed Australian legend Mag Lanning for most centuries in Women’s Internationals by getting to her 18th hundred across formats in the 17th over.
Lanning has 17 hundreds to her name. It was also Mandhana’s second T20 hundred and her innings comprised seven sixes and 14 boundaries.
In the following over, Mandhana plundered a couple of sixes down the ground to go past Mithali Raj (10868 runs) in the leading run scorers’ chart. As she often does, Mandhana scored runs all around the ground and was at her regal self while hitting sixes over the bowler’s head.
Notwithstanding the limitations of the Hong Kong bowlers, Mandhana made batting look easy on a surface where batters took time to get going.
Her opening partner Shafali Verma was also slow to get off the blocks before cutting loose in the last over of powerplay that went for 22 runs.
Hong Kong tried to trap Mandhana with a wide line but the seasoned India opener was hardly bothered by that tactic.
Pratika Rawal (10 off 12), playing at number three in her debut T20 series, could not accelerate and was caught at cover.
India captain Harmanpreet Kaur (10 off 9) and Richa Ghosh (11 off 13) perished while attempting an aerial stroke.