NAVI MUMBAI: Star batter Smriti Mandhana, the architect of India's win against Australia in the second women's T20 on Sunday, described the game as one of the most entertaining matches she has been part of.
India won the match via Super Over after the scores were tied at 187 to level the five-match series at 1-1. Mandhana scored 79 off 49 balls as Indian women nearly pulled off their highest ever chase before both teams ended tied at 187.
Mandhana also scored 13 runs in the Super Over to fashion the win.
"Happy to see such wickets prepared for women's cricket, you'll get high scores, high run chases. I think this is one of the most entertaining games we've all been a part of," Mandhana said at the post-match presentation.
"When they were batting, I realised it was an amazing wicket, I had my eyes on a big score. Didn't want to make the same mistake as the last innings," said Mandhana, who was named player of the match for her 79 off 49 balls.
She said everyone in the Indian team enjoyed chasing targets but the team "also needs to work on setting totals".
India captain Harmanpreet Kaur said her players learnt a lot from the previous game which the home side lost by nine wickets.
"We backed ourselves. If someone could get a bit more, then we could have got even 200. So that was the plan today, to back ourselves," she said.
On Richa Ghosh who made 26 not out off 13 balls, Kaur said, "I was always backing her, even when she wasn't getting runs. Today we saw what we could do with her power hitting.
"Fielding is something we need to keep working at, we gave too many runs today. Bowling was better today, because this wicket was too easy to bat on, nothing for the bowlers. Fielding is the only thing we need to improve from today."
Australia captain Alyssa Healy said, "Missed a bit with the ball tonight and they cashed in. What a great advertisement for women's cricket this has been, with 40,000 people here tonight.
"I think we missed a bit with the ball, gave them a chase. We did well to hang in there in the end and get it to the Super Over, India were all over us in that chase. We fought well to get us to that position, fought till the very end."
