Kate Cross defended three runs in the final over as England beat India by one run to take the Paytm Women’s T20 series 3-0.
Heather Knight’s team batted first and put 119 on the board, a total that India would have been confident of chasing.
For much of their chase India were well in control, but the big wicket of Smriti Mandhana – bowled by Laura Marsh for 58 – turned things England’s way.
With the dots and pressure building – and Mithali Raj stranded at the non-striker’s end – India struggled to get the ball away and Cross took two in two balls to leave three runs required off the last ball and eventually to secure a thrilling victory.
It means England have now won four in a row across their tour of India, and they’ll want to keep that momentum going as they travel to Sri Lanka for three ODIs and three IT20s.
Kate Cross: “We’re delighted to get over the line and win the series 3-0. When you’re defending three from the final over the expectation is the batting side will win so it was a different kind of pressure.
“We practice specifically for scenarios like that and I knew I just needed to keep hitting a heavy length. We’d been able to build the pressure and it was a real team effort to take the match that deep.
“At the interval we knew we were probably 20 runs short so we had to be on it with the ball and everyone stood up. We took wickets at the right times and made India work really hard for their runs.
“Winning is a really good habit to get into and we spoke before this game about being ruthless. We’ve been in those situations a fair bit as a side and it’s great that again we showed the belief and resilience that has served us so well.”
Courtesy of the ECB
