After a quiet start to the series, Smriti Mandhana saved her best for Sunday. Scores of 25, 14, and 1 in the first three T20Is had kept the Indian vice-captain in the shadows, but in the fourth match in Thiruvananthapuram, her sublime 80 off 48 balls not only powered India to their highest-ever T20I total but also set up a commanding 30-run win over Sri Lanka and go 4-0 up in the five-match series.
“After playing a lot of ODI cricket, it was hard to get into T20 mode, playing six months of ODI and coming back to T20 was a bit hard mentally. The plans were similar; I had some gameplans against them, I came early and tried to work on that,” Mandhana said after the match.
She set the early tone, creaming four boundaries in the first four overs to give her side a brisk start. Malsha Shehani and Kawya Kavindi failed to get their lines and lengths right, and the southpaw made them pay, flicking and cutting the deliveries to the boundary.
Verma also found her groove with the bat, cutting Kavisha Dilhari for a four in the third over before taking boundaries – a pull and a lofted slog sweep – off Chamari Athapaththu, playing her 150th T20I, to take India to 61/0 after six overs.
The spinners managed to stem the run flow after the powerplay. Yet, Mandhana and Verma maintained a high scoring rate by rotating the strike, combined with the odd boundary, to reach 85/0 at the halfway mark.
The right-hander got to her third consecutive fifty of the series in the 11th over, with a pulled four off Nimasha Madushani. The pair brought up the 100 in the same over as Athapaththu and her bowlers continued the search for the elusive breakthrough.
Mandhana, who had been largely playing along the ground till then, took the aerial route thrice in the 12th over from medium-pacer Rashmika Sewwandi, taking her for 20 runs and bringing up her half-century with a boundary over mid-off from 35 balls.
Mandhana’s renewed aggression allowed Verma to rotate the strike, and India’s vice-captain continued to use the long handle to devastating effect. The 150 came in the 15th over, but as they looked good to bat the entirety of the innings, Madushani broke through, dismissing Verma, caught and bowled for 79 in the 16th over, to end the 162-run stand – the highest for any wicket for India in women’s T20Is.
Mandhana also fell for 80, an over later, but Richa Ghosh gave the innings the late surge it needed, smashing her way to an unbeaten 40 off 16 balls.
Chasing a daunting 222 runs for victory, Hasini Perera and Athapaththu got the visitors off to a blazing start. The former was the early enforcer, taking Arundhati Reddy for 17 runs in the second over.
The skipper soon joined in the act, smashing Deepti Sharma for a six and a four in the third over to put early pressure on the Indians. The fifty came up in the fourth over as the pair made the most of mediocre bowling. But just when things were looking up, Perera threw her wicket away, mistiming an aerial shot into Harmanpreet’s hands at mid-off for 33 off Reddy.
The 59-run opening wicket stand had given them a launching pad, and Imesha Dulani, promoted to number three, and Athapaththu kept Sri Lanka in the hunt, at 95/1 after 10 overs.
But with the required rate climbing with each ball, Sri Lanka had to push for more boundaries, and in that pursuit, Athapaththu fell to the impressive Vaishnavi Sharma for 52, caught by Mandhana at long-off in the 13th over.
Dulani tried her best at her end, but with 83 runs needed in five overs, someone had to play a blinder. Despite some lusty blows in the end, none of the Sri Lankan batters could produce that singular defining knock and they fell short in the end, Brief Scores: India 221/2 in 20 overs (Mandhana 80, Verma 79) beat Sri Lanka 191 for 6 in 20 overs (Athapaththu 52, Perera 33; Vaishnavi 2/24) by 30 runs.