After being asked to follow on, India was in trouble on Day 3 of the Women’s World Cup, trailing England by 82 runs after Shafali Verma hit an unbeaten half-century.
With audacious strokeplay, Shafali Verma became the fourth woman in Test history to score two half-centuries on her Test debut, and she guided India to an 83-run lead on the third day of a one-off Test match against England. After the third session was washed out by rains, the teenage prodigy was batting on 55 not out off 68 balls in the Indian second innings. In the Test in which India had to follow on, Deepti Sharma (who had struck a resolute 29 in the first innings) was joined by Verma, who had remained unbeaten on 18 at the end of India’s second innings.
These other players who have scored two 50-plus scores in their first two games are England’s Lesley Cooke, Australia’s Jessica Louise Jonassen, and Sri Lanka’s Vanessa Bowen.
If India can keep themselves in the game on the final day on Saturday, they’ll still trail overall with nine-second innings wickets in hand and have a lot of work to do to pull out a win.
A total of 3 rain delays or interruptions occurred on the day, leaving only 45.5 overs for play. As the third interruption occurred, the umpires ordered tea and the game was effectively finished as they could not resume play because of heavy rain.
It was written all over Verma’s innings in which she amassed 11 fours under cool and windy conditions where the England bowlers were completely unprepared.
While being judicious in her use of balls sent to the fence, the Indian opener mixed aggressiveness with composure as she left out the best balls.
Deepti and Verma made up for the 30 minutes of rain-delayed play in the afternoon, as they added 54 runs against England bowlers over the course of 20 overs.
While England worked as hard as possible during the entire second session, they came up empty-handed. Smriti Mandhana was out for 8 runs off Katherine Brunt’s bowling in the morning session.
Verma, who had hit 96 in her first innings, hit six more boundaries in the second session, bringing her batting average to 216 for the match.
Early in the match, the Indian women were all out for a paltry 231, just before lunchtime.
Verma and Mandhana were undone after a collapse during the second day’s morning session, as India lost five wickets for the addition of just 44 runs in 21.2 overs (78).
For the ninth wicket, Deepti (29 not out) and Pooja Vastrakar (12) put up a 33-run stand, but they could not save the team from following on.
The England spinners—left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone (4/88) and off-break bowler Katherine Brunt (2/45) each took four wickets for the Women’s National Cricket Team. The England fast bowlers—all-rounder Anya Shrubsole (2/45) and seamer Katherine Brunt (2/38) saw India fall in the last two wickets.
By then, India had lost two wickets, one of which was the significant one of vice-captain Harmanpreet Kaur.
Harmanpreet was dismissed without adding anything to her overnight score of four after England went for review in the second over of the day.
She was stripped of her legs before the Ecclestone case was resolved. When she was done facing six balls, Tanya Bhatia fell two overs later without disturbing the scorer.
She was let go by Ecclestone, who explained the dismissal of Sneh Rana (2) by explaining that it was a turning delivery.
The new ball was awarded to England following 80 overs in the match, and the Indian first innings came to an end after 1.2 overs later with the dismissal of Jhulan Goswami (12) and Pooja Vastrakar (12). (1).
