England Women will be taking on the Indian eves in the second ODI of the three-match series in Canterbury on Wednesday.
India won the first match of the series comprehensively and they will be eager to seal the series here, whereas the England women’s team will be looking to bounce back strongly after theor dismal show in Hove.
Match Preview
England Women got completely outplayed in the previous match. The toss played a crucial part again as the hosts couldn’t put on a substantial total in conditions heavily favouring the faster bowlers. Still there is room for improvement in those conditions as their tip and middle-order didn’t show enough patience to hang around in the middle. It was due to the efforts of their lower-order that they could reach a fighting total of 227. Going into this contest, the spotlight will be on their top-order once again and they will need to deliver if England want to bounce back in this series.
India, on the other hand, will look to ride on the momentum gained from their massive win in the previous match. As many as three of their batters in Smriti Mandhana, Yastika Bhatia and Harmanpreet Kaur played impactful knocks and they will be eager to come up with an equally superior batting performance once again. The foundation of their win was laid by their bowlers, though.
They restricted England to a paltry total and that made things a lot easier for the Indian batters. But the visitors have to be careful about the toss, though. If they don’t win it, that will be a major disadvantage for them. But India has some very experienced players in their ranks and they will be expected to deliver irrespective of the toss result.
Possible Playing XIs
India Women
Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Harleen Deol, Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Deepti Sharma, Yastika Bhatia (wk), Pooja Vastrakar, Sneh Rana, Jhulan Goswami, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Meghna Singh
England Women
Emma Lamb, Tammy Beaumont, Sophia Dunkley, Alice Capsey, Danielle Wyatt, Amy Jones (c & wk), Alice Davidson Richards, Sophie Ecclestone, Charlotte Dean, Kate Cross, Issy Wong
Key Players
Smriti Mandhana
After playing a magnificent knock of 79 in the T20I series, Mandhana carried her good form forward into the ODIs as she played yet another match-winning hand of 91 in the first match of the series. She has been the in-form player for India and the team will be backing her to deliver once again.
Kate Cross
She is a very experienced pacer with 64 wickets to her name in 49 ODIs for England. Cross will be playing her 50th ODI here and she caused quite a bit of trouble to the Indian batters in the previous match. Even though the other English bowlers couldn’t cause as much damage, Cross bowled a terrific spell of 10-1-43-2.
Prediction
The Indian eves showed in the previous match how experienced they are in this format. They dominated in both batting and bowling departments and can be expected to do the same heading into this contest. India will be the favourites to win once again unless the hosts manage to pull off something astounding.
