Women’s cricket: Dunkley’s half-century, England beat India by five wickets
All-rounder Sophia Dunkley (73 not out) scored a half-century and Katy Cross (5/34) helped the England women’s team beat India by five wickets in the second ODI at The Cooper Associate County Ground here. Has taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. Batting first after losing the toss, the Indian team scored 221 runs in 50 overs on the basis of 59 runs off 92 balls with the help of six fours from captain Mithali Raj.
Chasing the target, the England team won the match by scoring 225 for five in 47.3 overs with the help of an unbeaten 73 off 81 balls with the help of five fours and a six. For India, Poonam Yadav took two wickets while Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey and Sneh Rana got one wicket each. Chasing the target, England had a poor start and soon lost the wickets of Tammy Beaumont (10) and captain Heather Knight (10). Lauren Winfield Hill handled the innings for some time but she returned to the pavilion after scoring 42 runs. After this Natalie Sciver (19) and Amy Allen Jones (28) also lost their wickets.
However, Dunkley, along with Katherine Brunt, stitched an unbeaten 92-run partnership for the sixth wicket to win the team. Katherine remained unbeaten on 33 off 46 balls with the help of three fours. Earlier, Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana got the Indian team off to a good start as the duo put on 56 runs for the first wicket. The pair was broken by Katy by dismissing Mandhana, who scored 22 runs in 30 balls with the help of three fours. After this the Indian innings faltered and they lost the wickets of Jemima Rodrigues (8) and Shafali (44 runs off 55 balls with the help of seven fours).
After this Mithali along with Harmanpreet Kaur tried to handle the innings but Harmanpreet (19) got out after scoring a run. While India’s wickets kept falling on one side, Mithali kept on handling the innings from the other end but in the end she got run out. In India’s innings, Deepti Sharma scored five, Sneh scored five, Tania Bhatia two, Shikha scored two and Poonam scored 10, while Jhulan remained unbeaten on 20 runs off 19 balls with the help of three fours. Apart from Katy for England, Sophie Ecclestone took three wickets and Natalie Sciver took one wicket.
