India Women vs South Africa Women, 2019: 5-match T20I series – Statistical Preview

India Women will play the South Africa Women in a 5-match T20I series at the Lalabhai Stadium in Surat, a venue set to host an international game for the first time. This will be the first series for India Women after Mithali Raj’s retirement from the shortest format. On the other hand, the visiting team will miss the services of their star all-rounder and skipper Dane van Niekerk. India Women made it to the knockouts of the WT20 in 2018 for the first time in four editions. However, they failed to win even one T20I match since then.

All the key stats and numbers that matter ahead of the 5-match Women’s T20I series between India and South Africa:

1-4 – South Africa Women’s win-loss record of 1-4 in T20Is in India is their worst in any country. South Africa Women lost to the hosts in a one-off game in 2014 and against Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka respectively during the 2016 WT20. Their only T20I win in India came against Ireland Women in the same WT20.

The head to head record of India and South Africa in Women’s T20Is reads the same as India Women won four of the six T20I meetings while the Proteas Women managed to win only one. Another game was washed out after 15.3 overs of play.

1 – Number of players younger than Shafali Verma (15y 239d as on 1st day of the series) at the time of their debut for India in any format. Gargi Banerji was 14 years and 165 days old when she made her ODI debut in 1978. Shafali has been included in the Indian squad for the first three T20Is and is likely to make her debut.

7 – India Women are currently on a 7-match losing streak in T20I cricket which is the longest losing streak in this format. Their losing streak began from the semi-final defeat during the Women’s WT20 game last year. India lost the 3-match series in New Zealand by 0-3 margin and also the series against England at home by 0-3.

40 – Poonam Yadav has taken the 4th most number of T20I wickets since the start of 2018 in women’s cricket. The top three spots are occupied by bowlers of Thailand team. Poonam picked up 40 wickets from 31 T20Is in this span at an average of 16.87. She is also the leading wicket-taker in IND-SA T20Is having taken 8 wickets from 6 games.

43 – Anuja Patil needs seven more wickets to become the 4th player to take 50 T20I wickets for India Women. If Anuja features in four matches in this series, she will become the 7th Women to feature in 50 T20Is for India.

50 – The first T20I of this series will be Smriti Mandhana’s 50th consecutive appearance in the T20I format for India Women. She will become the first player to feature in 50 consecutive T20Is for India surpassing Harmanpreet Kaur’s streak of 49 games between 2009 and 2014.

96 – Harmanpreet Kaur will become the first 1st Indian to feature in 100 T20I matches. Overall, only seven players in women’s cricket and one player in Men’s cricket (Shoaib Malik) have featured in 100 T20I matches.

187 – Smriti Mandhana has scored 187 in T20Is against South Africa Women across 5 innings. She scored those at an average of 37.4 with two fifties. Only Mithali Raj (232) and Dane van Niekerk (190) scored more in the IND-SA Women’s T20Is. Mithali announced her T20I retirement while Niekerk has been ruled out of this series.

874 – Mandhana has scored 874 runs in Women’s T20Is since the start of 2018; about 100 runs more than any other player. The Indian opener scored those runs from 29 innings at an average of 31.21 with 8 fifties.

1910 – Runs Harmanpreet Kaur has amassed in her T20I career thus far. She needs 90 more runs to become the 2nd Indian and 8th player overall to aggregate 2000 T20I runs in women’s cricket.

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