On Saturday, India set a new record for the highest team score in women’s Test cricket during the second day of a special Test match against South Africa. They beat the previous record of 575/9, which was held by Australia. Australia had set this record in Perth earlier this year, but India broke it when Richa Ghosh hit a four off the first ball of the 109th over, bowled by Annerie Dercksen. A big part of this achievement is thanks to the Indian opening players, Shafali Verma (205 runs) and Smriti Mandhana (149 runs), who together scored 292 runs, which is the highest opening partnership in women’s cricket history.
Other players like Jemimah Rodrigues (55 runs) and team captain Harmanpreet Kaur, along with Richa, also contributed well, all of them still not out after scoring more than 50 runs each.
On the first day, India had scored 525 runs for four wickets, setting a new record for the highest single-day total in a Test match. This broke the previous record held by the Sri Lankan men’s team, who scored 509 runs for nine wickets against Bangladesh in Colombo in 2002.
Since women’s cricket started in 1934, no team has ever scored 575 runs in a single innings until now.
