Shafali Verma took 20 off one over to get Pratika Rawal to her hundred, and India beat Zimbabwe by nine wickets
N Shree Charani took 4 for 23 as Zimbabwe were bowled out for 197 in Vadodara, and India won the first women’s ODI between the two sides with 137 balls to spare.
Oct 23, 2026
India had never played a women’s ODI against Zimbabwe before Friday, and they needed a little over half their overs to win the first one. Zimbabwe were bowled out for 197 at the Kotambi Stadium in Vadodara, and India got there in 27.1 overs for the loss of one wicket.
Pratika Rawal finished on 100 not out off 96 balls. She owed the last few runs of it to Shafali Verma, who made 64 not out off 33 and spent the final overs scoring so quickly that the hundred very nearly ran out of road.
Shree Charani’s ten overs
Zimbabwe won the toss and batted, and lost Loryn Phiri in the third over. Kranti Gaud took the catch off her own bowling. Modester Mupachikwa and Chipo Mugeri-Tiripano took the score to 46 for 1 at the end of the powerplay, which was as comfortable as the tourists got.
N Shree Charani then bowled ten overs of left-arm spin for 23 runs, three of them maidens, and took four wickets. She had Mugeri-Tiripano lbw, had Mupachikwa caught by Gaud for 25, caught Nyasha Gwanzura off her own bowling and ended Michelle Mavunga’s 29 off 23 balls, the only stretch of the innings in which Zimbabwe scored with any freedom. Gaud took 3 for 42 and Deepti Sharma two more.
Beloved Biza held the rest of it together. She is 17, and she made 62 off 92 balls. Not much came from the other end. Zimbabwe went from 140 for 6 to 183 for 9, and Tendai Makusha was the last out with one ball of the 50 overs left.
Shafali at No. 3
Smriti Mandhana, in her first ODI as India’s full-time captain, opened with Rawal and India were 72 without loss after the first ten overs. They put on 94 before Mandhana went after Olinder Chare’s legspin and holed out to long-on for 32.
Shafali came in at No. 3, which meant she missed the first ten overs of fielding restrictions. “Didn’t get the 10-over powerplay from No. 3, but tried to take the singles and I will learn these things,” she said afterwards. She reached fifty off 29 balls all the same, and Chare got the worst of her. When Rawal was on 89 and India still needed 32, Shafali took 20 off one Chare over.
That left Rawal with just enough. She hit Makusha for two fours in a row in the 27th over to bring up the hundred, and Shafali finished it next over with a boundary off Gwanzura. The pair added an unbroken 106. Rawal’s 100 had 15 fours and no sixes, and she was named player of the match, though Shree Charani’s ten overs did more to decide the game.
A debut, and two more games in Vadodara
Jintimani Kalita made her India debut. She went wicketless in five overs but took the catch that got rid of Mavunga, and she is only the second woman from Assam to play an ODI for India, after the wicketkeeper Uma Chetry.
Mandhana was not entirely happy. “We are playing 50 overs after very long time, so the period between overs 20-35 we could’ve had more intensity on the field,” she said. Nomvelo Sibanda, captaining Zimbabwe in place of Josephine Nkomo, put it more bluntly: “We were like 100 runs short.”
The three-match series counts towards the ICC Women’s Championship and India lead it 1-0. Zimbabwe will want more from their bowlers in the second ODI in Vadodara on Sunday 25 October. Seven of them bowled on Friday, and the tightest spell was Makusha’s five overs for 25.