India Women’s National Cricket Team superstar opener Smriti Mandhana created history with her performance in the first T20I of the five-match series against England Women’s National Cricket Team.

Smriti Mandhana’s dominating show with the bat at the Trent Bridge in Nottingham on June 28 helped Team India hand Team England their heaviest defeat in the history of T20I cricket.

India Women’s score big as Smriti Mandhana shines

In the T20I series opener against Team England, Team India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur was rested because she had suffered a head injury in the warm-up match against ECB Select XI, and the team management didn’t want to risk her.

In her absence, Smriti Mandhana took over the leadership responsibility and did an exceptional job. India were invited to bat first after losing the toss, and Mandhana opened the innings with the returning Shafali Verma.

Mandhana started off her innings in a brilliant fashion and did the heavy lifting in the excellent 77-run opening stand with Verma, who contributed just 20 runs.

After that, Mandhana built another solid partnership with Harleen Deol of 94 runs in just 45 balls. During that stand, Mandhana completed her terrific T20I century off 51 balls in the 16th over with a four.

She looked delighted after reaching the three-figure mark and eventually finished her innings with a score of 112 runs off 62 balls, with 15 fours and 3 sixes. The dominant show of the India stand-in skipper took the team to a gigantic total of 210/5 in the match.

With the ball, India women’s bowlers fired as a unit and bundled out England women’s for 113 in 14.5 overs to hand the Women’s Lions their biggest defeat in T20I history by 97 runs.

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Smriti Mandhana becomes the first Indian to score a ton across formats in women’s international cricket

Mandhana created and shattered several records with her epin ton in the match. She became the first Indian cricketer to smash a ton across all three formats of women’s international cricket and overall fifth to achieve the feat after Heather Knight, Tammy Beaumont, Laura Wolvaardt, and Beth Mooney.

The 28-year-old became just the second Indian women’s batter to score a T20I after Harmanpreet Kaur and helped India become the first full-member team to register back-to-back 200-plus totals in Women’s T20Is.

Mandhana’s ton also helped her join Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, KL Rahul, and Shubman Gill as the only Indian players to hit centuries across all three formats. Also, she is just the third Indian after KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma to hit centuries across formats outside Asia.

I had a habit of getting out in the 70s and 80s – Smriti Mandhana

Smriti Mandhana won the Player of the Match award for her heroics in the match, and speaking during the post-match presentation ceremony, she expressed her delight over finally reaching the three-figure mark in T20I cricket. She said:

“It took a long time coming. I had a habit of getting out in the 70s and 80s. Me and my teammates before the series were talking, high time I get a hundred. I was timing the ball well.

“The way Harleen Deol batted was great. For her to come in and the way she batted, she got the momentum going after the fall of Shafali. The conversation we had was if we bowl against the wind, we had to bowl it slower. Tried to get Nat off the strike as much as possible. Richa’s catch diving across was brilliant. Just the start, we need to keep the momentum and get into good habits,” she further said.