India's No 5 Jemimah Rodrigues is starting to come to terms with the middle-order role and into her own as she slammed her second ODI century within four months. Rodrigues came in to bat in the powerplay itself, as in trying to play with intent and at a certain strike rate, the Women in Blue found themselves three down early, only to be resurrected to their highest ODI score against South Africa women.
India had lost early wickets but they didn't give up on their intent, which eventually helped them as Jemimah was on the money from the start. She kept on believing in her scoring shots while Smriti Mandhana dropped anchor from the other end. Mandhana got out to South Africa's stand-in captain Chloe Tryon immediately after scoring her fifty but Jemimah's yin found a dependable yang in Deepti Sharma, who was promoted to No 6 ahead of Richa Ghosh.
Jemimah didn't take her foot off the pedal and kept going for her shots while respecting good balls and playing boundary shots with caution. It was very calculative batting, something which she will be very proud of, especially since India were pegged back early. The right-hander went on to complete her century off just 89 balls while Sharma scored an impressively quick fifty as South African bowlers had no answers to India's precise attack.
India ended up getting a total of 337/9, their highest against South Africa and fifth highest overall in women's ODIs.
Highest ODI total for India women
435/5 vs Ireland - Rajkot, 2025
370/5 vs Ireland - Rajkot, 2025
358/2 vs Ireland - Potchefstroom, 2017
358/5 vs West Indies - Vadodara, 2024
337/9 vs South Africa - Colombo, 2025
After losing their last game against Sri Lanka, there was a visible change in India's approach with the bat as they look to qualify for the final of the tri-series. But the challenge for Harmanpreet Kaur and Co will be to sustain this intent, given there is a World Cup scheduled in next four months.