India Women Beat Zimbabwe Women by 8 Wickets — Vaishnavi Sharma's 5 for 39 and Shafali Verma's 26-Ball Fifty Finish the 3-0 Sweep

A dead rubber is where a touring side is supposed to find something to take home. Zimbabwe chose to bat on Wednesday in Vadodara, and for ten overs India's new-ball pair gave them nothing to work with: 46 dot balls in the powerplay, 30 for 3 at the end of it. From there the innings belonged to Vaishnavi Sharma, whose slow, dipping left-arm spin brought 5 for 39 in her tenth over and left Zimbabwe 131 all out in the 40th.

India then used the chase as a laboratory, with Yastika Bhatia opening, Harleen Deol at three and Shafali Verma dropped to No. 4 for the first time in her career. Shafali answered with 51 not out off 26 balls, Pratika Rawal made 59 not out, and the runs came in 17 overs. India Women won by eight wickets with 198 balls remaining, a 3-0 ODI sweep to go with the 3-0 in the T20Is. Vaishnavi was Player of the Match; Rawal, with 220 runs across the three games, was Player of the Series.

The decision to bat was a reasonable one for a side that had been asked to chase 329 three days earlier, but the first ten overs undid it. Kranti Gaud and Sayali Satghare, India's new-ball pair with Renuka Thakur not in the XI, swung the ball and kept it on or around off stump, and the scoreboard barely moved. Loryn Phiri inside-edged a full inswinger from Satghare to Bhatia for a six-ball duck in the second over, and in the third Chipo Mugeri-Tiripano reached for a wide one from Gaud and slashed it to Shafali at point. Zimbabwe were 12 for 2. Vaishnavi came on in the tenth over and struck with her first ball: Beloved Biza, 1 off 16 balls and unwilling to let the spinner settle, charged her first delivery and chipped it to Harmanpreet Kaur at mid-on. Thirty for 3 at the end of the powerplay, with 46 of the 60 balls going unscored.

Modester Mupachikwa at least tried to change the tempo. She took two boundaries off Vaishnavi in the 12th over, one of them off a free hit, drove Kalita for four in the 13th and chipped Vaishnavi over mid-on in the 16th. But Josephine Nkomo was 4 off her first 18 balls at the other end, and with the pressure all on one batter the risk arrived: three balls after that lofted four, Mupachikwa came down the pitch again, did not reach the ball, and was stumped by some distance. Her 37 off 48 with seven fours was Zimbabwe's best, and it ended at 52 for 4 in the 16th over.

What followed was the only passage of real resistance: 43 in 70 balls between Nkomo and Chiedza Dhururu for the fifth wicket, Nkomo surviving on 11 when Kalita overstepped. Deepti Sharma bowled a quiet, full spell of 4-1-7-0 in this period, and Shafali's off-spin was tried as well. Vaishnavi's dip did the rest. Dhururu advanced at a shorter length ball, played too early and gave a leading edge to extra cover for 20 off 39; two overs later Michelle Mavunga mistimed a loft and Deol, running back from mid-on, juggled twice and held it. Nkomo top-edged a pull off Gaud to Kalita running in from fine leg for 35 off 67, Gwanzura bottom-edged a sweep into her stumps off the last ball of Vaishnavi's tenth over, Satghare burst through Olinder Chare's gate, and Nomvelo Sibanda was run out going for a single her partner did not want. The last five wickets fell for 36.

With 132 to get, India changed the shape of their top order. Yastika Bhatia, keeping in place of Richa Ghosh and playing her first ODI in two years according to ESPNcricinfo, opened the innings and was caught by Francisca Chipare off Sibanda first ball. It would be Zimbabwe's only celebration of the afternoon. Harleen Deol, in her first match of the series, came in at three and matched Pratika Rawal shot for shot through the early overs: four fours and two sixes carried India to 37 for 1 after five, Rawal whipping and punching Mavunga for four and pulling Sibanda for six, Deol driving, gliding and cutting her way to a run-a-ball 19. The pair added 59 in 51 balls before Deol was caught down the leg side by Mupachikwa off Phiri in the ninth over.

That brought Shafali Verma to the crease at No. 4, a position she had never batted in an ODI, and she treated it as a licence rather than a demotion. Five boundaries came from her first 13 balls. Each of her three sixes came after she had advanced down the pitch, and the third of them finished the match. She reached fifty off 26 balls, which ESPNcricinfo recorded as India's second-fastest ODI fifty, and finished 51 not out. Rawal, who had made the running before Shafali arrived, reached her own fifty off 47 balls and ended on 59 not out off 56, with four fours and three sixes. The third-wicket stand was 74 unbroken in 50 balls; Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet and Deepti were not required.

The Kotambi surface had given up 328 and 207 three days earlier, so 131 was not a pitch score. ESPNcricinfo's report has Gaud and Satghare finding swing in the first ten overs and Vaishnavi getting turn and, more importantly, dip, by bowling slowly and tossing it up; three of her five wickets came from batters advancing and misjudging the length. Both of Zimbabwe's set batters, Mupachikwa and Dhururu, were out leaving their crease. India's two big partnerships, by contrast, scored at better than a run a ball on the same square without obvious alarm, which says something about the gap in the two sides' batting rather than anything about the surface.

Three ODIs, nine wickets. Vaishnavi Sharma's maiden ODI wicket came on Saturday; on Wednesday, in her third game, she bowled ten overs straight through for 5 for 39, her first five-wicket haul in the format, with 46 dot balls. The report describes a bowler who kept the ball on a string: slow through the air, dipping on the batter, turning enough. Biza chipped her first ball to mid-on, Mupachikwa was stumped a long way out, Dhururu gave a leading edge, Mavunga mistimed a loft, and Gwanzura's sweep came off the bottom edge onto the stumps with the last ball of the spell. Five dismissals, five different mistakes, all of them invited. India's spin cupboard has Deepti, Charani and now a 20-year-old left-armer who has taken 4 for 39 and 5 for 39 in consecutive games.

Our preview called India overwhelming favourites and said a sweep to follow the T20I whitewash was the expected outcome. That was right, by a margin that would have been hard to overstate. We also said the dead rubber was Mandhana's chance to experiment with combinations, and she did: Bhatia opened, Deol batted at three, Shafali at four. Where we were wrong was in the detail. We expected Renuka Thakur to lead the new ball, and she did not play; Gaud and Satghare took the first four wickets between them. We named Richa Ghosh as the keeper-batter, and it was Yastika Bhatia who kept and opened. The verdict was sound; the team sheet was not.

The tour is over, six matches to none. India leave Vadodara with a list of things learned rather than questions: Vaishnavi's nine wickets in two ODIs, Rawal's 220 runs at the top, and a reminder that Shafali's game travels down the order if that is ever needed. Mandhana's first assignment as full-time ODI captain has ended with a 3-0, and the next ODI series will tell us more about the side than this one could. For Zimbabwe, the honest summary is that 131 was their lowest total of the series, and that Mupachikwa, 49 on Saturday and 37 here, was again the one batter who found a way to score against the new ball. The fifth-wicket stand of 43 and Nkomo's patience are the parts to build on; the powerplay, where they lost three wickets for 30 and faced 46 dot balls, is where the work starts.