Raut dismisses Mandhana led India Blue with a fierce hundred

India Green. So far undefeated in the Women’s Challenger Trophy, India Green bashed the blues out of India Blue to make it two in two games today after registering an important 36-run win over India Blue at the Holkar Stadium in Indore.
 
The leading light of the team were special dual efforts by India Green’s dashing opener Punam Raut and captain Anuja Patil, the former notching up a brilliant, quick fire 101 and the latter, wrapping up the game by important breakthroughs courtesy a 2-37.
 
The only aspect India Green won on pretty much a one-sided encounter from January 6’s contest was the win at toss after Smriti Mandhana elected to bowl first, unaware of the batting storm that was to come from the blade of Punam Raut, a handy bat of the experience of 53 international ODIs for India.
 
A 232 for 8 in the first innings is just the kind of mid-sized score that can either be ravaged by the team batting second or can lead to a rather unexpected batting collapse. Eventually, it was the latter that took Smriti Mandhana’s side by quite a surprise here on Saturday amidst raving fans in the heart of Indore.
 
Getting off to a good start was imperative where India Blue’s chances were concerned but it wasn’t quite the case as both Vanitha VR and Hemlatha fell off cheaply to send the side reeling under immensity of pressure.
 
By the 14th over, the score read 45 for the loss of 2 wickets, meaning the asking rate was only climbing whilst the current scoring rate was not even close to 4 an over. Under mounting pressure, the middle order carried on at snail’s pace with captain Smriti Mandhana playing her natural game and keeping the score rotating, stealing singles as she strolls through the mid on and long off regions.
 
While it wasn’t one of the characteristic thunderous knocks by the gritty left-hander today, a 49-ball 37 is all India Blue’s captain could manage before holding off at deep mid-wicket of the bowling of leggie Devika Vaidya.
 
Clearly, one of the finds of the competition so far is the dainty 20-year-old leg spinner Devika Vaidya whose international career has only just started but whose bowling echoes the guile and cunning one expects from a clever exponent of leg spin.
 
Once India Blue lost their captain, it would all go downhill, one saw Green chipping away with key wickets at regular intervals. It would only be Mona Meshram who would exude a fine counter-attacking play against the spinners, lofting one too many across the boundaries in ensuring that her side reached a total of respectability.
 
But truth be told, calling an aggregate of 192 as respectable might not exactly be very savory.
 
Finding the gaps on either side of the wicket with much of her scoring coming from freely-struck boundaries, Meshram kept the fight until the end but even her 68 wasn’t enough.
 
But the highlight of the game was clearly Punam Raut’s sensational hundred, whose batting seemed to have begun where she left it in the previous game, having scored a fifty in a match-winning cause. But it wasn’t the only feisty score that formed a solid foundation to India Green’s otherwise handy and competitive 232.
 
Jemimah Rodrigues, fresh from an attacking 84 in her earlier game, chipped in with a vital 52. With fast bowlers not being particularly among the wickets on a fairly green track that offered assistance to turn, fans saw a hefty 1st wicket stand of 112 being broken by Radha Yadav, who would strike again to reduce India Green to 119 for 3, removing mid-inning batswomen Monikha Das and Vaidya.
 
But purists who love a typical contest where the captain leads from the front would’ve been delighted to see India Green skipper Anuja Patil contributing from both bats first and later, ball. In contributing a vital 44 off 51 balls, the Maharashtra youngster enabled an 84-run stand with Raut who clearly stole the highlight with ten hits to the fence.
 
Now, with India Red haven’t been particularly in any rich vein of form, the next contest, the decider- shall see India Green lock horns once again with India Blue So will Mandhana’s bat prevail or would we see Punam Raut give arguably India’s newest batting talent a run for her money, watch out on Monday.
 
India Blue vs India Green
India Green 232/8 (Raut 101, R Yadav 3/39)
India Blue 196/7 (Meshram 56, Patil 2/37)
India Green win by 36 runs.