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India made history at Old Trafford on Wednesday night by winning the fourth Twenty20 international by six wickets, sealing their first T20 international series victory in England.
“This time, this team, this atmosphere, it’s magical,” Radha Yadav said. “We want to create something big going forward. We are going to dominate, no matter what.”
England sit above India in the International Cricket Council’s T20 team rankings but the manner of this defeat suggests the rankings have not quite caught up with reality. The home team were outplayed in every department.
With the bat, England suffered from a combination of poor shot selection and general muddle-headedness to finish on 126 for seven. India’s fielding was so blisteringly good that England failed to score a single boundary between the 11th and 19th overs.
India’s openers, Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana, then raced to 53 not out in the powerplay, displaying the controlled aggression which England had so lacked, and laying a secure enough platform that a few overs of sensible batting and strike rotation from Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues enabled the latter to hit the winning runs with three overs to spare.
“India have adapted to English conditions better than we expected,” Tammy Beaumont said.
“It’s really difficult to defend a score like that when you know they’re going to come out and play freely and get ahead of the game. We stuck at it and did pick up a few wickets, but we never really had enough runs if we’re honest.”
Sophie Ecclestone, playing in her 100th international, took one for 20 in her four overs and held on to a catch at mid-off to see off the Indian captain Kaur. She had earlier broken England’s boundary drought at the death, slogging a six over midwicket to finish unbeaten on 16 from 10. But it was too little, too late in an innings punctuated by regular wickets.
Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Beaumont and Paige Scholfield were caught by Arundhati Reddy trying to heave down the ground, while Alice Capsey missed her attempted reverse to Shree Charani, was given out leg-before, and was so unconvinced by her own decision to review that she walked off before the third umpire, Jacqueline Williams, had given her verdict.
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A panicked Charlie Dean then set off for a single after hitting the ball straight out to Charani at short third, was sent back and was so far out of her ground that even a flailing Richa Ghosh could not fail to run her out.
Beaumont admitted England had missed the level-headedness of Nat Sciver-Brunt, who is missing the remainder of the T20 series because of a groin injury but is expected to be fit for the one-day internationals.
“Her experience through that middle order and how aggressive she is, she probably would have batted through that on that wicket and got us to a score that we could have defended,” Beaumont said.
Earlier, Deepti Sharma had become only the second Indian woman to reach 300 international wickets after Sophia Dunkley got a thick edge out to backward point in the sixth over and fell for 22 – the top score of the England innings, and the start of its unravelling.
