VADO­DARA –Sm­ri­ti Mand­hana and Renu­ka Singh pro­duced im­pres­sive per­for­mances as In­dia Women steam­rolled West In­dies Women by a record 211 runs in the open­ing One Day In­ter­na­tion­al at the Ko­tam­bi In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um in In­dia on Sun­day.

Open­er Mand­hana just missed out on a cen­tu­ry, scor­ing 91 from 102 balls, and ably sup­port­ed by a top or­der that all made use­ful con­tri­bu­tions, In­dia amassed 314 for nine from their 50 overs, their sec­ond high­est ODI to­tal at home, af­ter be­ing sent in to bat by the vis­i­tors.

The home side’s bat­ting out­shined a stel­lar spell by left-arm spin­ner Zai­da James, who grabbed took 5-45, her first five-wick­et haul.

Play­er-of-the-Match Singh then mowed down her op­po­nents with her fast bowl­ing, on her way to grab­bing a maid­en ODI five-wick­et haul as In­dia rout­ed the West In­dies for 103 in 26.2 overs, to give the home side vic­to­ry in the first in­ter­na­tion­al match played at the venue.

The mar­gin of vic­to­ry was In­dia’s sec­ond largest in terms of runs, bet­tered on­ly by the 249 runs they de­feat­ed New Zealand by in 2017, and gave them a 1-0 lead in the three-match se­ries.

Mand­hana and new open­ing part­ner Prati­ka Raw­al, who was mak­ing her de­but, put on 110 runs for the first wick­et, with the West In­dies miss­ing sev­er­al op­por­tu­ni­ties to break the part­ner­ship.

Raw­al had scored just one run when she gloved a catch be­hind to the wick­et­keep­er, but the vis­i­tors failed to re­view and when she was on three, Afy Fletch­er, who was sta­tioned at mid off, dropped a sit­ter off the bowl­ing of Hay­ley Matthews.

Those miss­es proved cost­ly as Raw­al even­tu­al­ly set­tled and to­geth­er with the in-form Mand­hana, frus­trat­ed the West In­dies for the first 24 overs.

Mand­hana start­ed slow­ly, but once set­tled she mixed ag­gres­sion with cau­tion, even­tu­al­ly bring­ing up her 28th ODI half cen­tu­ry with a bound­ary through mid­wick­et off Fletch­er.

Short­ly af­ter get­ting In­dia past the 100 mark, Raw­al was un­lucky to be dis­missed when Matthews took a spec­tac­u­lar, one-hand­ed div­ing catch off her own bowl­ing, af­ter she had scored 40.

And just nine runs short of a well-de­served cen­tu­ry, Mand­hana was trapped plumb in front by James af­ter fac­ing 102 balls and strik­ing 13 fours.

Fol­low­ing her dis­missal, Harleen De­ol scored 44, cap­tain Har­man­preet Kaur made 34, Richa Ghosh added 26 and Jemimah Ro­drigues blast­ed 31 from 19 de­liv­er­ies to help bol­ster In­dia’s in­nings.

James helped to re­strict In­dia in the death, though, ac­count­ing for the wick­ets of Ro­drigues, Saima Thakor and Titas Sad­hu who both scored four, and Singh for a duck.

She end­ed with 5-45, while Matthews took 2-62.

The West In­dies’ run chase was over al­most as soon as it start­ed.

Qiana Joseph was run out off the first ball of the in­nings af­ter re­act­ing late to a quick sin­gle by Matthews, and with just three runs on the board, Matthews found a thin edge af­ter chas­ing a wide de­liv­ery from Singh to be caught be­hind for a duck fol­low­ing an In­dia re­view.

De­an­dra Dot­tin hit Singh for two bound­aries, but the pac­er got her re­venge when she rocked back her mid­dle and off stump to leave the chase in dis­ar­ray at 11 for three.

It soon be­came 11 for four when Rasha­da Williams was bowled by Titas Sad­hu and when Singh re­turned to pick up the wick­et of Aaliyah Al­leyne for 13, the West In­dies had ca­pit­u­lat­ed to 26 for five in the 11th over.

It took the ef­forts of Fletch­er, who made an un­beat­en 24, She­maine Camp­belle, who made 21 and Kar­ish­ma Ramharack (11), to get the Windies in­to three fig­ures.

Singh was well sup­port­ed by Priya Mishra who took 2-22.

Scores

IN­DIA WOMEN 314-9 in 50 overs (Sm­ri­ti Mand­hana 91, Harleen De­ol 44, Prati­ka Raw­al 40, Har­man­preet Kaur 34, Jemimah Ro­drigues 31, Richa Ghosh 26, Deep­ti Shar­ma 14 not out; Zai­da James 5-45, Hay­ley Matthews 2-61).

WEST IN­DIES WOMEN 103 in 26.2 overs (Afy Fletch­er 24 not out, She­maine Camp­belle 21, Aaliyah Al­leyne 13, Kar­ish­ma Ramharack 11; Renu­ka Singh 5-29, Priya Mishra 2-22).

In­dia Women won by 211 runs.

CMC