India Women beat Zimbabwe by 121 runs in Vadodara to take 2-0 ODI series lead

India Women beat Zimbabwe by 121 runs in the second one-day international at the BCA Stadium in Vadodara on Sunday, October 25, to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series (Prameya News, WION). Harmanpreet Kaur made 126 off 121 balls and Deepti Sharma finished unbeaten on 106 off 86 as India recovered from 19/2 to 328/6; Zimbabwe were bowled out for 207 in 48.5 overs, with Vaishnavi Sharma taking 4/39 (The Hindu, Orissa Post).

This piece is as of 15:42 IST on Tuesday, October 27. The third and final ODI is scheduled for Wednesday, October 28, at 2 pm in Vadodara, per The Hindu and Prameya News.

How the match went

India won the toss and batted (The Hindu). Smriti Mandhana was out for a duck in the first over and Shafali Verma was out for 8, both to Nomvelo Sibanda, leaving India 19/2 (Prameya News, Yes Punjab). Outlook, Orissa Post and The Times of India say Verma was caught at mid-wicket; The Hindu puts India at 19/2 in the third over.

Harmanpreet and Pratika Rawal added 124 for the third wicket. Rawal made 61 off 67 balls and was out in the 23rd over, and Tejal Hasabnis fell for 3 soon after, leaving India 148/4 (Yes Punjab, India Today). Harmanpreet then added 153 with Deepti for the fifth wicket. Yes Punjab says Harmanpreet reached her hundred off 101 balls and was caught at long-off in the 46th over for 126, and that Deepti reached hers off 83 balls in the final over; Orissa Post adds that Harmanpreet was dropped three times and that Deepti hit 15 boundaries.

In reply, Modester Mupachikwa made 49 and, with support from Chipo Mugeri-Tiripano, Zimbabwe reached 100 in 19 overs, The Hindu reports. Vaishnavi Sharma, a left-arm spinner, then dismissed Mupachikwa for her first ODI wicket and took three more, and Deepti took 3/32 in nine overs, per The Hindu and Prameya News. Harmanpreet was named Player of the Match (Prameya News, The Hindu).

The result follows India's nine-wicket win in the first ODI, per Prameya News, in which, according to the recap in Outlook's live blog, Rawal made an unbeaten 100 and Shree Charani took 4/23, and a 3-0 India win in the T20I series in Raipur, per The New Indian Express. Orissa Post and Asianet Newsable describe this as the first bilateral women's series between India and Zimbabwe.

Records and milestones as reported

• Harmanpreet's eighth ODI hundred puts her second among Indian women, behind Mandhana's 14 and ahead of Mithali Raj's 7, according to lists in The Times of India and The Free Press Journal; Asianet Newsable says the same.
• Deepti's century is described as the first by an Indian woman in ODIs from No. 6 or lower, by ABP Live and Yes Punjab, the latter adding that it passed Richa Ghosh's 94 against South Africa at the 2025 World Cup. It is her second ODI hundred, nine years after her first, The Hindu says.
• The 153-run stand is reported as the Indian record for the fifth wicket or lower, by ABP Live and Yes Punjab; The Hindu calls it a "record-breaking" fifth-wicket stand; Yes Punjab says it passed the 122 added by Sneh Rana and Pooja Vastrakar against Pakistan at the 2022 World Cup.

These records are as the outlets report them; Alethman has not checked them against a scorebook.

What the outlets stressed

• The Hindu set Harmanpreet's "restrained" innings against Deepti's attacking one, and described what it called India's "worrying inability to take wickets, especially the seamers" as Zimbabwe reached 100 in 19 overs.
• Hindustan Times profiled Vaishnavi Sharma, 20, of Gwalior, on her return to the ODI side after eight months, quoting her on working on speed and variations and quoting captain Mandhana: "Vaishnavi was brilliant. She was varying the pace and changing angles."
• Orissa Post wrote that Harmanpreet "seems to be enjoying life without the extra responsibility of captaining the side".
• The New Indian Express, before the series, reported Deepti saying she was ready to be vice-captain, with Mandhana taking over as captain from Harmanpreet for the ODI leg.
• Outlook and India Today ran live blogs of the match.

Where reports differ

• Who is captain. The New Indian Express, Orissa Post, WION, Outlook and Hindustan Times name Mandhana as captain, and The New Indian Express reports she took over from Harmanpreet. Two match reports, Yes Punjab and ABP Live, call Harmanpreet captain; neither mentions a change.
• Mugeri-Tiripano's score. The Hindu and WION give 46; Prameya News gives 35.
• The ground. Yes Punjab, Prameya News and WION call it the BCA Stadium in Vadodara; The Hindu and ABP Live put the BCA Stadium at Kotambi; India Today calls it the Kotambi Stadium.

What is not yet known

• The result of the third ODI on October 28, which could still make it a 3-0 series.
• Mugeri-Tiripano's score, given as 46 in two reports and 35 in one; the official scorecard was not among the sources read.

Drafted by the Alethman engine from 13 independent reports, and checked by the Alethman News Desk before publication. Where the coverage bar places an outlet on a side, that comes from a published media-bias rating (Media Bias/Fact Check, AllSides) or documented ownership; Alethman does not rate outlets itself.