Durham [UK], July 23 : India captain Harmanpreet Kaur spilled the beans about the plans and blueprint that she followed diligently to find her lost mojo, especially months before the Women's ODI World Cup, scheduled to be held back home from September 30.
The series was level at 1-1 as the game headed to Chester-le-Street for the third and final ODI. With a sublime cover drive, Harmanpreet found the boundary rope off left-arm spinner Linsey Smith to get off the mark on her 11th delivery.
The experienced star's century was her seventh in ODIs but her first in the format in 13 innings. Since her blistering 54 in the 50-over warm-up match against an ECB Development XI at the start of the tour, her top score in either of the white-ball series against England stood at 26, which came in the fourth T20I.
"In all the matches, I wanted to give my best in batting, but today's game was very important to us. The plan was to spend some time on the wicket and then see how things go. That really worked for me. The first [ten] balls, I didn't get any runs, but then I was just talking to myself: I'm not going to lose myself, just be there, be there for the team," Harmanpreet said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.
She walloped a century in 84 deliveries, bettering her 87-ball effort against South Africa last year to set a new record for the second fastest century in the format for her country. Her efforts are only surpassed by stylish opener Smriti Mandhana's 70-ball hundred against Ireland earlier this year. The Indian skipper also became just the third from her country to go past 4000 runs in women's ODIs.
While the Indian skipper took the centre stage with the bat, 21-year-old seamer Kranti Goud stole the limelight with his sizzling six-wicket haul in her fifth ODI appearance. She returned with figures of 6/52 as England packed their bags on 305 with one ball left to play and 13 runs shy of the 319-run target. Goud became the second-youngest to scalp a five-wicket haul after Deepti Sharma in the women's ODIs.
"She's been really impressing whenever she was on the field and bowling for the team. I'm really happy with the kind of bowling she did today, and whenever we needed a breakthrough, she was there for the team," Harmanpreet said of Goud.
India's 318/5 was the second-highest score by a visiting team in England, behind their 333/5 in Canterbury in 2022. It was India's fifth 300 or more total in ODIs in 2025. India will face a much sterner assignment, a three-match ODI series immediately before the World Cup. However, Harmapreet is keen to take the positives out of the tour, which included a 3-2 T20I series win as well.
"I'm really happy. All the girls, they're coming up with a positive mindset and working really hard on their fitness. We have understood a lot of things in the past few years, and right now we're just trying to pass that benchmark and set ourselves into that position where people can talk about women's cricket. People can take a women's cricket really seriously back home because we all know how much people love cricket back home, and they also want us to do well," she concluded.
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