India-England one-off women’s test ended in a draw

The one-off test match played between Indian eves and England at Bristol ended in a draw. Indian women after asked to follow on, showed stellar resolve in the second innings and batted out whole of the final day of this four-day test to save the match.

Debutants, all-rounder Sneh Rana and wicketkeeper Taniya Bhatia stitched a 104-run unbroken ninth-wicket partnership to deny England any come back in the match. While Rana scored 80, Bhatia made 44 runs before both the captains decided to shake hands.

Earlier, teenage opener Shafali Verma had hit 63 in the second innings to complement her 96 in the first outing. Deepti Sharma also scored a half-century (54) on her debut. Punam Rout also made 39 runs. Indian innings was again going wayward after a good top-order performance when they lost captain Mithali Raj (4), senior batter Harmanpreet Kaur (8) and another debutant all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar (12) cheaply in the middle order. Rana and Shikha Pandey steadied the batting by adding 41 runs before the unbroken partnership happened.

For England left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone took 4 wickets. She also had taken a 4-fer in India’s first innings to restrict the visitors to 231 in reply of England’s 396/9 declared.
Despite the openers Shafali and Smriti Mandhana (78) hitting half-centuries, no other batters could stood up to the cause and Indian team fell short of a follow-on by 15 runs.