Harmanpreet Kaur, who was under tremendous pressure following a string of low scores on the tour of England, redeemed herself in the final game at Chester-le-Street in Durham. Everything went right for her on Tuesday as she first won the crucial toss in the third and final ODI against England, then she scored a brilliant century (102) to help India post a massive total, and finally took the last catch that saw the visitors defeat England by 13 runs to clinch the ODI series 2-1. As this Indian women’s team had already beaten the hosts 3-2 in theT20I series previously, this is the first time India have swept both the white-ball series in a single tour. In 2022, they had won the ODI series 3-0 but, lost the T20I series 1-2.

Poor run of scores initially

Kaur’s love for England is well known as she had registered her highest ODI score of 171 not out at Derby in 2017 and 143 not out at Canterbury in 2022. But somehow she kept getting out without a substantial score on the current tour and that gave rise to murmurs in the media that she was well past her best. But that match-winning knock has shut down all negative talks about her. Talking at the post-match media conference, she said: “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. That really worked for me. The first [few] 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 for the team.’ ” 

By reaching her century in 82 balls, Kaur surpassed her 87-ball effort against South Africa last year as the second-fastest for her country in women’s ODIs after Smriti Mandhana’s century off just 70 balls against Ireland earlier this year. She also became the third Indian to pass 4000 runs in women’s ODIs.