The First day of the One-off test between the Indian Women’s team and the South African Women’s team has started at a blistering pace for the Indians. Winning the toss on a Chennai wicket which looked like a flat surface to begin with turned out to be the perfect decision for the Indians. Opening the batting for India was, Shafali Verma, India’s U-19 World Cup-winning captain, along with the in-form Smriti Mandhana.
There are not many women who have been in such a thick vein of form as Smriti Mandhana recently has. One look at the way she has been going about her business is enough to convince you that the 28-year-old Maharashtra girl is in her prime. She picked up the Player of the Series award for the bilateral ODI series against South Africa recently after scoring 2 back-to-back centuries and another 92 in the final game. But it seems as if this isn’t enough for her. Today she tormented the South African bowling unit yet again and scored a fantastic 149 before getting caught in the slips. Scoring her 2nd career Test 100 and becoming the highest century scorer across formats for India ever. With 9 hundreds, 2 Test and 7 ODI, Smriti Mandhana sits at the very top of the list when it comes to scoring centuries for India. While she missed out on her 150, her opening partner made sure she got her 150 and more.
If Smriti’s heroics weren’t enough, Shafali managed to outshine the left-hander and went on to score 205 runs before getting run out in a mix-up with her partner Jemimah Rodrigues. The 20-year-old made it into the record books for many reasons today. She became only the second Indian woman to score a Test Double ton. Not only that, Shafali’s 200 against the Proteas is the fastest-ever 200 in Women’s Test Cricket. If only the run-out hadn’t happened, Shafali was well on course to beat Pakistan women’s Kiran Baluch’s 242 runs record, which to this date stands as the highest individual test score by a woman.
Apart from their individual achievements, the Smriti-Shafali partnership broke the partnership record for the highest 1st wicket stand in Women’s cricket by a mile. They flew past the previous record of 241 runs set by the Pakistani duo of Kiran Baluch and Sajjida Khan. The Indian opening stand lasted a whopping 292 runs before Smriti Mandhana succumbed to Delmari Tucker’s turn.
With valuable contributions from the Indian middle order, Team India went to stumps on Day 1 after posting an incredulous 525/4 on the scoreboard. This again, is a record of its own. They surpassed the highest number of runs scored in a test match, period. In women’s test matches, the previous record was 475 runs in a single day scored by the Kiwis and the English combined on a single day in Christchurch back in 1935, i.e., 89 years ago. But that’s not all. They also broke the Men’s record of 509 set by the Sri Lankans in 2002 against Bangladesh by 16 runs.
As of now, the Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur remains not out on 42* alongside Richa Ghosh, 43*. Both women would look to add on as many runs as they can tomorrow before declaring the innings and hopefully taking home the victory in the coming days.
