A sublime unbeaten 88 and two catches from star Indian batter Smriti Mandhana helped Manchester Super Giants seal a four-wicket win over Sunrisers Leeds in a league fixture of the Hundred in Leeds on Tuesday.
After winning the toss and opting to field, Meg Lanning’s Super Giants held Sunrisers to 142/4, powered by enterprising scores from Bryony Smith (26 runs off 22 balls), Phoebe Litchfield (31 runs off 26 balls) and Annabel Sutherland (35 runs off 24 balls). Smriti was involved in Litchfield and Sutherland’s dismissals, taking two sleek catches.
Star India allrounder, Deepti Sharma, did not get a chance to bat.
Chasing 143 for a win, Lanning set the tone with a four and a six off the first set. While Smriti took a set to get a sense of a surface that looked tricky in the first innings. When Cassidy McCarthy dismissed Lanning after Sutherland and Co. squeezed the run flow, Smriti stepped on the gas to keep the chase alive.
When Paige Scholfield fell, Richa Ghosh joined Smriti but only lasted six balls, with a single boundary to her name. But Smriti carried on unfazed.
Jess Jonassen, who has a reputation for infusing chaos in opponent innings, triggered a runout that saw Maitlan Brown fall for a duck. She nearly had Smriti off the very next ball, but Litchfield dropped a sitter at deep midwicket.
She made Sunrisers pay for the lifeline and in the firing line was her India teammate Deepti.
Smriti smacked the offie for two lovely boundaries through cover to get momentum back in MSG’s favour. She also punished her for a gorgeous six over long on in her final set later on, to bring the equation down to 33 needed from 20 balls. Sutherland’s control meant the ask came down to a tight but doable 16 off 10.
Smriti and Kathryn Bryce hacked off 14 runs from the penultimate set before Smriti finished things off with another six over Sutherland’s head to seal a hard-fought win.
Deepti did, however, register a great catch to her name, when she managed to run from backward point, dive low and take a one-handed grab to send back Scholfield for a run-a-ball five.
“Feels great to win the match. Got a little lucky with the dropped chance, but glad I could do the job for the team. We discussed that the wicket has a bit of hold, and that it is not a typical Headingley wicket. We felt if we played positive cricket and commit (to our shots), we could chase it down,” Smriti, who won the Player of the Match honour for her innings, said after the game.
“I got it pretty late in my innings, and just committing to the shot and not playing anything half-heartedly. In franchise cricket, you have to keep your head down and keep going. If you win matches like this, it puts you in a good place,” she added.
Published on Jul 28, 2026
