India Women will take on England in the final ODI of the 3-match ODI series. England won their both game comprehensively and took a 2-0 lead in the series.
Match Timings: July 03, 3:30 PM IST
Team Preview
England will now host India for the final time in the ODI series before heading to the T20I series. The hosts sealed the series in style and won the first two games with ease. Indian girls were thrashed by English women in the opening ODI at Bristol and the story continued in Taunton as well. Indian side did slightly better this time and bowlers almost gave a chance but one partnership for the 6th wickets made them suffer.
Indian openers added 56 runs for the opening wickets and Shafali scored 44 off 55 balls. They lost three wickets in the span of 21 runs and later, Mithali revived India by scoring 57th half-century. She added 68 runs with Harman who got out after scoring 19. It was another failure for India’s vice-captain. From 145/3, India collapsed badly and bowled out on 221. It was a short cameo from Jhulan Goswami who scored 19 and added 29 runs for the final wicket to take India 221.
Indian bowlers controlled runs this time and picked 5 wickets on 133. England were under pressure but Dunkley revived the hosts by scoring a maiden half-century in his debut innings. Brunt contributed 33 in the end and England chased it down with 15 balls spare. India could have scored 240-250 this time but their middle-order let them down. Dropping in-form Punam Raut was not a good idea. Mithali suffered an injury and we saw Harman captaining the side in 2nd innings. She might be unavailable for the final ODI. India has to change their intent in batting. They cannot win matches with this score.
Team India’s poor record in ODI continues as they suffered their second successive series loss and it was their sixth loss in seven games in 2021. Meanwhile, England won their second ODI series of the year and won their fourth game out of five. After some positive efforts in the second game, India would look to find a victory here.
Pitch Report
Worcester’s surface is also good for batting and it offers a great assistance to pacers. Spin might be handy here. Chasing would be slightly tricky if the score is around 240-250.
Possible XI
England Women
Lauren Winfield Hill, Tammy Beaumont, Heather Knight (c), Natalie Sciver, Amy Ellen Jones (wk), Sophia Dunkley, Freya Davies, Katherine Brunt, Sarah Glenn, Sophie Ecclestone, Kate Cross
India Women
Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Punam Raut/Rodrigues, Mithali Raj (c), Harmanpreet Kaur, Deepti Sharma, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Jhulan Goswami, Pooja Vastrakar, Shikha Pandey, Poonam Yadav
Key Players
England Women
Tammy Beaumont
66 in Bristol Test, 87 in First ODI
Heather Knight
95 in Test, a solid allrounder for the English side
India Women
Shafali Verma
Player of the match in the Test, 44 in last game
Punam Raut
Top-scorer for India in ODIs this year, can play sheet-anchor in middle-overs
