India's women ended the New Zealand ODI series on a high after a disappointing series of losses. India Women defeated New Zealand Women by six wickets. The five-match ODI series ended at 4-1 in favour of New Zealand. NZ Women also won the only T20I of the series.
Thus, team India avoided an awful 5-0 whitewash.
Batting first, New Zealand women set a target of 252 runs in 50 overs. Courtesy of the fifties by Smriti Mandhana, Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur, India chased down the total in 46 overs.
Mandhana scored 71 runs while Kaur and Raj scored, 63 and 57 runs respectively. The backbone of the Indian batting looks strong as ever.
Deepti Sharma and Sneh Rana were pick of the bowlers as they picked two wickets each and put brakes on the run flow. At one point the Kiwi women were marching on at 95/1. It was a collective bowling effort to curtail NZ's innings at 251 runs.
This is a good boost before the Indian women begin their World Cup campaign. Indian women will play the first match of this year's ICC Women's World Cup against Pakistan on March 6.