Worcester: Captain Mithali Raj scored an unbeaten 75 off 86 balls to power the Indian women’s cricket team to a four-wicket win over England in the third and final ODI here on Saturday.
Mithali, who became the top run-getter in women’s international cricket, hit eight boundaries and kept calm as she took her team over the line despite the rest of the batters disappointing again.
Smriti Mandhana (49 off 57 balls) and Sneh Rana (24 off 22 balls), who added 50 runs for the fifth wicket with Mithali, were the other main scorers.
Earlier, Indian women bowled out England for 219 in the allotted 47 overs — reduced due to rains.
England, who were put into bat, were cruising along at 151/3 in the 34th over with contributions from Heather Knight (46 off 71 balls), Natalie Sciver (49 off 59 balls) and Lauren Winfield Hill (36 off 52 balls).
However, quick wickets towards the end of the innings pushed England women to the back-foot.
Off-spinner Deepti Sharma was the most successful of the bowlers, picking three wickets for 47 runs while Jhulan Goswami (1/31), Shikha Pandey (1/42), Poonam Yadav (1/43), Sneh Rana (1/31) and Harmanpreet Kaur (1/24) picked a wicket apiece.
England bagged the series 2-1.
Brief scores: England women 219 all out in 47 overs (N Sciver 49, H Knight 46, LW Hill 36, S Dunkley 28, D Sharma 3/47) vs Indian women 220/6 in 46.3 overs (Mithali Raj 75 not out, Smriti Mandhana 49, Sneh Rana 24, Sophie Ecclestone 2/36)
