Taunton, June 3 (IANS) Alice Capsey and Heather Knight century stand helped England beat India by six wickets in the third and final T20I to seal the series 2-1 ahead of the Women’s T20 World Cup, starting from June 12.

The two batters shared a massive 137-run stand to recover from a precarious position in the run chase to chase down a target of 181 in 18.3 overs.

The effort was England’s highest T20I chase since 2018, led by Alice Capsey (82 from 43 balls) and Heather Knight, who finished unbeaten on 70 from just 42 deliveries.

Chasing 181, Englan lost their openers in the first three overs when Kranti Goud castled Danni Wyatt-Hodge in the second over and Arundhati Reddy removed Sophia Dunkley in the third over.

Kranti also managed to get rid of Amy Jones in the final over of the Powerplay as the host were 53/3.

But Capsey continued to punish the Indian bowling attack by fetching boundaries. At the other end, Knight also picked up boundaries against the Indian spinners. The duo were all guns blazing as England took control of the chase at the halfway mark.

Capsey soon brought up her half-century off just 26 deliveries whereas Knight inched closer to hers with two more boundaries of Nandni Sharma.

Capsey hit a four and two sixes in a row against Shree Charani. This left England needing only 28 runs to win with five overs left.

Even though Capsey was eventually caught or bowled out for 82 runs, England was easily going to win. Knight hit a four in the second-to-last over to finish the game and secure the victory for England.

Earlier, batting first, even though India lost their opening batters early, just like England did later in the game, they still managed to score 180 runs.

Shafali Verma hit a bad shot and was out for 11 runs. Smriti Mandhana was easily trapped lbw by Charlie Dean.

Yastika Bhatia, who had been playing well all series, kept India moving fast during the powerplay, hitting seven boundaries to push India’s score to 57 runs quickly. Unfortunately, her fast and exciting batting ended suddenly when she was run out.

Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur then rebuilt the innings but England struck again when Lauren Bell executed a perfect slow ball that tricked Rodrigues and hit her stumps to get her out.

England then managed to squeeze in a few tight overs before Harmanpreet found her rhythm again. The Indian skipper managed to get her fifty. However, India only scored 48 runs in the final five overs.

England Women 184/4 in 18.3 overs (Alice Capsey 82, Heather Knight 70*; Arundhati Reddy 2-31) bea India 180/5 in 20 overs (Harmanpreet Kaur 56*, Yastika Bhatia 32; Lauren Bell 2-36) by 6 wickets

–IANS

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