Mandhana, bowlers hand Australia their heaviest ODI defeat

Smriti Mandhana's 12th ODI century set-up India's series-levelling victory - by 102 runs - in the second ODI against Australia in Mullanpur on Wednesday. The opener's knock stood out in India's batting performance on a friendly wicket, but a late stutter kept the hosts to 292. Australia got off to a shaky start, made some progress in the middle-overs but a collapse at backend saw them succumb to their heaviest defeat in the format.

Jemimah Rodrigues' illness forced their hand, and India went with an extra bowler and a 3-3 bowling combination with Renuka Thakur and Arundhati Reddy coming in and a second left-arm spinner, N Charai, missing out. Put in to bat, Indian opening pair posted another solid platform of 70 runs where Mandhana led the way. Mandhana and Pratika Rawal became the first female opening pair to aggregate 1000 partnership runs in a calendar year enroute their stand - their 12th 50+ effort in 16 games together.

Mandhana's footwork shone in her fifth century at home in the last 15 months. Australia brought on Ash Gardner with the new ball but the left-hander danced down the track in two successive overs to launch the offspinner into the stands twice. Post PowerPlay, she similarly disrupted Georgia Wareham's plans with an early attack. A six to deep midwicket was followed by a four off a full toss the very next ball. The next over began with consecutive boundaries, one on either side of the wicket, and ended with a maximum mowed over a leaping fielder at deep midwicket. The legspinner, Mandhana's RCB teammate, was take off after conceding 29 in the two-over spell.

The attack was also in response to India's dropping run-rate with a well-set Rawal dismissed to Ash Gardner's slower one and Harleen Deol typically taking her time to settle in. A mix-up in the middle resulted in Deol's run-out soon after, and Gardner returned to bait Harmanpreet Kaur with a slower, loopy delivery to leave India three-down for 152 just after the halfway mark. Losing partners at the other end, and knowing India are a batter short, Mandhana carried on undeterred to post the second fastest ODI hundred for India - in 77 balls - as she welcomed Tahlia McGrath into the attack with a four.

Despite some early punishment from the India vice-captain, Gardner finished her spell with an impressive 2 for 39 and immediately moved to the deep midwicket where she caught Mandhana one ball later to bring curtains on her blistering knock. Deepti Sharma, who had put on 40 runs with the opener, then forged a 47-run stand with Richa Ghosh to take India close to 250-mark but a collapse of 3 for 16 triggered by Australian pacers culled India's chances of going past 300. Sneh Rana played a handy cameo of 24 in 18, fending with the tail to drag the innings to the final over.

India's opened with pace form both ends, and the dup struck early to leave Australia in a spot of bother at 12/2 halfway through the PowerPlay. Georgia Voll, replacing Phoebe Litchfield in the XI, dragged an inside edge onto the stumps to hand Thakur a wicket in her first over upcon return from injury, and at the other end, KRanti Goud overcame a wayward start to have Alyssa Healy caught at deep backward. Australia managed only 25 runs from the first-10 - their second lowest aggregate in the PowerPlay phase in the last decade.

Beth Mooney and Ellyse Perry gown down to rebuilding, and forged a 50-run stand together. Mooney got two reprieves in her 34-ball stay for 18, but was eventually caught by Reddy trying to take on the spin of Rana. After dropping a simple return catch from Sutherland, Radha Yadav pouched a tougher one to see the back of Perry and deny her a fifty by four runs. Perry's wicket triggered a rare middle-order meltdown wherein allrounders Sutherland, Gardner and McGrath were all dismissed in quick succession - Deepti bagging the prized scalps of the last-two.

Australia lost the second half of their batting for just 56 runs, bowled out under 41 overs as Goud helped mop up the tail to finish with 3 for 28 in 9.5 overs. All six bowlers India deployed got on to the board. The heavy defeat brought to an end a 13-match winning streak in the format for Australia, and was only their second loss since 2023 Ashes.

Brief scores: India 292 all out in 49.5 overs (Smriti Mandhana 117, Deepti Sharma 40; Darcie Brown 3-42, Ash Gardner 2-39) beat Australia 190 all out in 40.5 overs (Annabel Sutherland 45, ellyse Perry 44; Kranti Goud 3-28, Deepti Sharma 2-24) by 102 runs.