India’s Women’s World T20 campaign got off to the best possible start as skipper Harmanpreet Kaur’s record ton propelled her side to a 34-run win over New Zealand.
Given that New Zealand and Australia are the stronger sides in the group and only two teams from each group go through, this was an important match for both teams. And for a while it looked like India were in trouble before Harmanpreet took over.
She scored just 5 off the first 13 balls she faced but then the dam broke and New Zealand could do little but watch the water go by.
Here’s a look at all the records that were broken during the game:
- Harmanpreet Kaur scored the first hundred for India in women’s T20Is. It took her just 49 balls.
- Harmanpreet also became the 8th player to score a T20I century in women’s cricket. She is the first Asian to do so.
- It was also the first century in women’s T20I cricket to be scored by a player coming in to bat at the No 5 position. Five centuries have been at #1 position, 1 at #2, 2 at #3, 1 at #5, 1 at #6.
- Harmanpreet Kaur’s eight sixes in the match is more than the total number of sixes hit by any team in the entire 2016 World T20.
- India finished with 195/4, the highest ever total in the Women’s WT20. Previous highest was 191-4 (20 overs) by Australia v Ireland at Sylhet in the 2014 edition.
- India’s 34-run win margin against the White Ferns is their second biggest victory margin against a non-Asian opponent.
- Jemimah Rodrigues (18 years and 65 days old) became the fifth youngest to register a fifty in women’s World T20. She is also the youngest Indian to achieve the landmark, which came in just her first World T20 appearance.
- The 134-run partnership between Kaur-Rodrigues was the highest stand for India in Women’s World T20 for any wicket.
- Poonam Yadav continued her wicket-taking run in T20Is in 2018 to go past Jasprit Bumrah in the combined list of leading wicket-takers for the calendar year.
- It came in a losing cause, but White Ferns opener Suzie Bates went past Charlotte Edwards to become the leading run-score in Women’s World T20 history when she reached her half century.