Women's Tri-Nation: India Beat South Africa By 23 Runs, To Take On Sri Lanka In Final

Riding on Jemimah Rodrigues' career-best century and half-tons from opener Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma, India defeated a fighting South Africa by 23 runs to set up a title clash with Sri Lanka in the women's Tri-Nation ODI series in Colombo on Wednesday. Rodrigues' blazing 123 off 101 balls, laced with 15 fours and a six, saw India post a huge 337 for 9 before the bowlers, led by pacer seamer Amanjot Kaur (3/59) and off-spinner Deepti Sharma (2/57) restricted the opponents to 314/7. This despite Annerie Dercksen's fine 81-run knock and stand-in skipper Chloe Tryon's 67.

India ended their round-robin phase with six points from four games. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have four points from three games and could garner two more points if they beat South Africa on Friday.

South Africa, after losing three consecutive games, are out of contention even though they have a match to go against Sri Lanka on Friday.

India's batting prowess came to the fore once again as they posted a 300-plus total with 24-year-old Jemimah anchoring the team's innings with her second ODI hundred.

She shared two vital partnerships - an 88-run stand off 99 balls with opener Smriti Mandhana (51) and a 122-run partnership off 115 balls with Deepti Sharma (93), who missed out on a ton by seven runs.

Rodrigues was finally dismissed in the 43rd over caught at point while trying to hit over the offside.

The success did bring cheers to the South African camp but the euphoria was short-lived as all-rounder Deepti took over and played a classy 84-ball innings, studded with 10 boundaries and two sixes.

Deepti was the eighth Indian batter to be dismissed but by the time she departed, with just one delivery remaining, she had done the damage.

For South