Smriti Mandhana continued her love affair with England, as she stormed into the record books after slamming the joint-fastest fifty in women’s T20s during the Women’s Cricket Super League 2018 match at the Cooper Associates County Ground in Taunton.
Representing Western Storm, Smriti Mandhana scored an unbeaten 52 off 19 balls to guide her team to a total of 85/2 from their six overs in a rain-truncated match against the Loughborough Lightning.
The left-hander reached her fifty off just 18 balls. It was also her first fifty in the competition.
Earlier, New Zealand’s Sophie Devine had slammed a half-century off 18 balls against India. It was also the fastest fifty in the history of the tournament. Mandhana’s knock studded with five fours and four maximums.
The southpaw’s quickfire knock eventually made the difference in the game. Riding on her knock, the defending champions restricted the Lightnings for 67/0 from their six overs and won the match by 18 runs.
Sophie Devine tried her best, scoring 46 off 21 but the score was just too big to chase down.
Mandhana bagged the Man of the Match award for her stunning knock. She is now leading the list of most sixes in the tournament, having already hit 11.
The 11-sixes are already the most by a player in the history of the tournament in any season. Windies’ Stafanie Taylor and New Zealand’s Rachel Priest had hit nine each in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
The first and only Indian player so far to play in the league, Smriti Mandhana has scored 137 runs in just three games. She has become one of the Indian team’s batting mainstays since her exploits in last year’s World Cup in England.
So far, Smriti has hit 1464 runs from 41 ODIs, including three centuries and 11 fifties. She has also played 42 T20Is for India and has scored 857 runs at an average of 23.16.