With the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 already underway in England and Wales, match number 10 saw the India women’s national cricket team take on the Netherlands women’s national cricket team at Headingley, Leeds. The Women in Blue were invited to bat first and openers Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma gave the team a great start by scoring 115 runs for the first wicket.
Smriti Mandhana, who scored another half-century in 36 balls against Netherlands in the match, added another achievement to her name. She became the first Indian woman cricketer to score the highest score of 50+ in Women’s T20 World Cup history. He achieved this feat immediately after scoring a half-century on Wednesday.
Smriti Mandhana achieved a new milestone!
Smriti Mandhana played an inning of 74 runs in 47 balls with the help of 11 fours and one six. Her opening partner Shafali Verma gave a bright start to India by playing a brilliant inning of 55 runs in 38 balls with the help of 10 fours. Both made a partnership of 115 runs. The southpaw has been the leading run-scorer for India in this format with 4475 runs.
Smriti Mandhana is jointly the third batsman in men’s and women’s history to score the highest 50+ score in Women’s T20 World Cup history. He is behind only Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who have scored 15 and 12 times 50+ in the T20 World Cup. Smriti now has 6*50+ scores in major tournaments.
During the toss, Harmanpreet Kaur said that she was happy to bat first. He said, “I think it’s a very good opportunity for us to bat first because there are slightly difficult conditions because of the cloudy weather, but I think we want to bat first and we want to challenge ourselves. (Areas where India want to improve despite the early win) I think the powerplay with both bat and ball is something we really want to improve on.”
“Hopefully today we will bat positively in the powerplay and while bowling, if we can get a few wickets in the powerplay, that will be important. (On handling situations if the ball starts spinning) I think it is about sticking to our plans and batting as deep as possible because in these conditions you cannot start hitting with the very first ball.”
After being invited to bat first, India made a huge score of 209/5 in the stipulated 20 overs. The middle order collapsed in the latter stages of the first innings, otherwise they would have gone past 220 runs. But Richa Ghosh’s inning of 20 runs in 8 balls helped the team to finish the innings better.
The task will now depend on the bowlers as the Women in Blue will be looking for their second win after defeating arch-rivals Pakistan by 64 runs in the first game. A win by a good margin will help the team gain confidence before taking on South Africa.
Many more to follow…