Priya Punia shines on debut as India outplay South Africa

VADODARA: It was a special day for young Priya Punia who scored a half-century on her debut in the first One-day International (ODI) against South Africa at Reliance Stadium here on Tuesday.


The 23-year-old right-hand batter opened the innings and went on to score 75 off 124 balls that included eight boundaries.

Punia, who remained unbeaten, led from the front and set the stage for her team's easy victory. Earlier, South Africa won the toss and chose to bat first. But they got off to a poor start as veteran pacer, Jhulan Goswami (3/33) trapped Lizelle Lee leg before wicket on the very first ball of the innings. Soon, Ekta Bisht (2/28) got into the thick of things and tricked Trisha Chetty and Mignoon du Preez who came forward only to be beaten by the flight of the delivery.

Chetty and Preez were stumped by Taniya Bhatia reducing the hapless visitors to 56 for 3. Laura Wolvaardt and skipper Sune Luus shared a 33-run partnership but Deepti Sharma bowled Laura in 22nd over. Shikha Pandey (2/38) then caught and bowled Sune Luus in 25th over. SA couldn't recover from the loss and kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

Chasing 164 runs for visitors was never going to be a difficult task for the hosts. Punia and the talented Jemima Rodrigues (55) provided a solid start by stitching together an opening partnership of 89 runs in 21 overs. Rodrigues was trapped leg before by Nondumiso Shangase while Poonam Raut too got out in similar fashion in 32nd over when India had scored 128 runs.

India skipper Mithali Raj and Punia then took India comfortably to its target. Punia was awarded player of the match for her debut half-century. "I was bit nervous but I had planned to first stay on the wicket and then score," Punia said while accepting the award.

Brief scores: South Africa women 164 (Marizanne Kapp 54, Laura Woolvardt 39, Jhulan Goswami 3-33, Ekta Bisht 2-28) lost to India women 165 for 2 (Priya Punia 75*, Jemimah Rodrigues 55) by eight wickets.

Milestone for Raj, completes 20 years in int'l cricket

Meanwhile, skipper Mithali on Wednesday achieved a remarkable feat by becoming the first woman cricketer to complete 20 years in the international cricket. The flamboyant batter achieved the feat against South Africa in the first ODI. With this, she has become only the fourth cricket player in the world and first in women cricket, to have 20 years or more of international cricket experience. Now only Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Javed Miandad have had longer careers in the international cricket than Raj.

So far, she has played 204 ODI matches and has smashed 6731 runs within astonishing average of 51.38. The 36-year-old cricketer has also played 89 T20Is and has amassed 2364 runs. She retired from the shortest format of the game last month.

(WITH INPUTS FROM AGENCIES)