India vs England: Shreyanka Patil, Saika Ishaque showcase what they can bring to table as Harmanpreet Kaur and Co end series on high | Cricket News

Harmanpreet Kaur’s immediate reaction after India won the third T20I against England on Sunday in Mumbai was to point out how her side had improved with each match in the series. No one personified that more than the team’s newcomers Shreyanka Patil and Saika Ishaque as the hosts won the match 5 wickets to make the series 1-2.Shreyanka, with her 3/19 and two catches, finished with the player of the match award. Saika too was impressive with her spell of 3/22 as the two spinners stepped up.
England rotated heavily after the series was sealed but for India, it was a case of finishing on a high and putting together a performance in front of the thousands who had turned out to watch. Jemimah Rodrigues would later reveal that was what vice-captain Smriti Mandhana told the team as well: ‘Make it worth the watch for the fans’.
India managed to do that as they first came up with an impressive bowling performance to restrict England to 126 all out in their 20 overs. With the match being played on the same tricky pitch as on Saturday, the chase wasn’t going to be straightforward but a solid Mandhana-Rodrigues partnership, followed a brilliant 4-ball cameo in the end Amanjot Kaur saw India chase down the target with an over to spare.
Shreyanka, Saika step up
After their debuts at the start of the series, both Shreyanka and Saika had spoken about being nervous the night before and not getting enough sleep. The excitement of getting their hands on the India cap was palpable. While both of them got their names on the wicket-taking l on Wednesday, it was a night with more lessons than moments to celebrate.
On Sunday, though, both of them looked more comfortable with their rhythm and got the balls to land in good areas much more frequently. Renuka Singh Thakur once again provided early breakthroughs for her side with the new ball. Thenj Saika came into bowl the last over of the powerplay and struck with the first ball, to remove the dangerous Alice Capsey for the second game in a row.
She was then brought back into the attack in the 12th over with England recovering through Heather Knight and Amy Jones’ partnership and provided her captain with a double breakthrough. Jones was caught at midwicket and Danielle Gibson was bowled as she struck off two consecutive deliveries. Harmanpreet called her a ‘bindaas cricketer’ who is always eager to bowl the tough overs, in a press conference a couple of nights back. The flight to get underneath the hitting arc of Jones followed the accurate slider that was targeting the stumps to beat Gibson’s cut summed up Saika’s strengths.
It was then Shreyanka’s turn to pick up three wickets, as she showed her guile to vary the angle from over and around the wicket. First Bess Heath was caught at short-third off a reverse sweep. That was followed an arm ball that hit Freya Kemp’s pad first before the bat (a smart review from Richa Ghosh helped here) as the off-spinner too struck off consecutive deliveries. In her next over she set up Sophie Ecclestone with a nice 1-2 punch, first taking the ball past her outside edge, then following it one that spun in from the around-the-wicket angle to durb the stumps. It was a dismissal that would have done Ecclestone proud if she was bowling.
In the press conference after the first match, Shreyanka had spoken about how she has been working hard on scenarios in training and wanted to improve her execution. “We did a lot of scenario-based practice back in Bangalore with my coach Arjun (Dev) sir, very specific. Once you start playing high-level cricket, you need to be more accurate with your practice and what should be done so that the performance comes out well. The execution part is still in the learning phase. Planning is very important, and execution will happen with the experience,” the 21-year-old said. When she picked up the player-of-the-match award on Sunday, she had a wide smile as she performed like she belonged at this stage, in front of her family and coach.
Shreyanka also mentioned how the WPL has played a part in her journey and her teammate Rodrigues highlighted that in a post-match chat with the broadcasters. “Credit goes to the WPL, it helps you ease out the pressure and it helped our girls take our confidence to the next level. The more we play together, the more we play in the WPL, this team can be a threat to many teams in the future. We need time as a team,” Rodrigues said.
Mandhana comes to the party
On the batting side, it had been a quiet series for Mandhana and the start to her innings on Sunday was also tentative. But with Rodrigues finding her range quickly with the sweep shot, the left-hander took her time to get her eye in. Once Rodrigues departed, Mandhana started finding the boundaries more often, even targeting Ecclestone with the positive match-up. She eventually finished with a crucial 48-ball 48 that augurs well for India going into the Test match.
The finish was getting a bit wobbly as India lost the wickets of Deepti Sharma, Mandhana, and Richa Ghosh in the space of three overs. But with the pressure just starting to ramp up, Amanjot came in and hit a couple of courageous off drives off Ecclestone to take India past the finish line.
New head coach Amol Muzumdar and captain Harmanpreet have stressed on the importance of having the energy of the newcomers as they build this squad toward the World Cup next year. After a couple of less-than-ideal outings, Sunday showed glimpses of what this squad can achieve with time and exposure.