Records tumbled as the Indian women’s cricket team, powered by skipper Smriti Mandhana’s 70-ball century, demolished Ireland by a whopping 304 runs to claim its biggest-ever ODI win and complete a 3-0 clean sweep here on Wednesday.The result of the match was a mere formality once India set Ireland a massive target of 436, and Ireland could only garner 131 before getting bundled out in 31.4 overs.India put the first step forward towards a crushing victory through record-breaking Mandhana (135, 80b, 12x4, 7x6) and her opening partner Pratika Rawal (154, 129b, 20x4, 1x6), reaching 435 for 5, the highest total by an Indian team—men or women—in ODIs.India men’s highest ODI total is 418 for 5 made against the West Indies in Indore in 2011. Mandhana and Rawal added a whopping 233 runs for the first wicket in just 26.4 overs and there was no looking back.Then spinners Tanuja Kanwar (2/31) and Deepti Sharma (3/27) took over, sharing five wickets among them to decimate the Irish line-up, which was well short on experience.Orla Prendergast (36) and Sarah Forbes (41) added 64 runs for a fluent third-wicket stand that helped Ireland to recover from a shaky 24 for two to reach 88 without further damage. But once Prendergast was cleaned up by Kanwar, India were all over the tourists like a bad rash, claiming the remaining seven wickets for just 33 runs.It also helped India eclipse their previous largest margin of victory (by runs)—249 registered against the same opposition in 2017 at Potchefstroom, South Africa.
