Harmanpreet and spinners shine as India beat England by 11 runs

India will be mighty happy having won their second consecutive warm-up game against England by 11 runs. Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur played a sensational knock which was backed with some outstanding bowling performance by the spinners.

Having won their first warm-up match against West Indies, Indian team was very much focussed to continue the momentum before heading to the tournament and on the other hand English side were desperate to win this game and get used to the conditions.

After winning the toss and electing to bat first, India had got to a very good start scoring 42/1 in the power play losing the wicket of Smriti Mandhana. When the experienced Mithali Raj and inform Jemimah Rodrigues were trying to build a partnership, England's skipper Heather Knight had struck twice with the ball in quick succession which meant the scoring rate dried up and India could only score 60/3 in the first 10 overs.

Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur played magnificently and scored an unbeaten 62 of 32 balls with a strike rate of 193.75. However, there was no support from the other end apart from Deepti Sharma who scored 18 runs. The duo added a partnership of 54 runs for the 6th wicket and some late flourish from the skipper's willow meant that India could put up a stiff target of 145.

Chasing this target, apart from opener Danielle Wyatt, none of the English players could capitalize on the start they got. Wyatt scored 54 off 53 balls. Once again, for India, it was the spinners who did the trick. While Poonam Yadav picked up 3 wickets, Radha Yadav and Deepti Sharma took 2 wickets each and also bowled pretty economically which means England could only score 133/8 in their allotted 20 overs.

India won the match by 11 runs and more importantly, they are going into the tournament with a winning momentum which is very crucial for a big tournament like World T20. India will be facing New Zealand in their first match of the tournament on November 9.