Chennai (Tamil Nadu): The Indian Women’s team inked their name in the history books on Saturday as they posted the highest team total in women’s red-ball cricket declaring the innings on 603/6.
Indian batters dominated the opposition bowlers in the match with their openers Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana firing on all cylinders providing the team with a 292-run opening stand, the highest for first wicket and the second-highest for any wicket in the history of the game. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led side surpassed the previous total of 575/9 posted by Australia earlier this year in Perth against South Africa.
The Varma-Mandhana duo stand of 292 runs provided a solid platform for the team to take the team towards a huge total in the end. Jemimah Rodrigues also came up with a valuable addition of 55 runs during her stay at the crease at the M A Chidambaram Stadiu.
Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur played a knock of 69 runs while wicket-keeper Richa Ghosh carved a knock of 86 runs. The collective effort from the batting unit helped the Women in Blue get to a mammoth total of 603/6 and they declared their innings after that. Also, the team scored the highest total on day 1 in the women's Test cricket.
India also became the first team to notch up 600-plus total in first-class cricket.
Delmi Tucker picked a couple of wickets for South Africa while Nonkululeko Mlaba, Nadine de Klerk and Tumi Sekhukhune chipped in with one wicket each.
India has dominated the one-off Test between both teams so far and they will look to capitalise on their huge first-inning total and bag the fixture. Earlier, the Indian side registered a 3-0 clean sweep over South Africa in the ODI series. The tour will sign off with the three-match T20I series between the two teams starting from June 16.
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