The opening partnership between Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal is slowly becoming the best India has ever seen in ODIs. They brought out their A-game when the Women in Blue needed it the most, against
world-beaters Australia on Sunday (October 12) in the group stage clash of the 2025 Women’s World Cup.
With India batting first at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam, the duo started slowly, scoring only 23 runs in the initial six overs. As spin came on, they exploded, taking on two of the best in the world in Sophie Molineux and Ashleigh Gardner with brilliantly timed boundaries.
At the time of writing, they had crossed 129 runs together, making it the highest-ever opening stand against Australia in Women’s World Cups. They broke the record of 101 runs by England’s E Bakewell and D Thomas in the inaugural World Cup in 1973.
In the ninth over, where Rawal hit a six and a four against Gardner, they crossed 50 runs together. It was the 14th 50-plus partnership between them in ODIs. That’s the second-highest number of such stands for India in this format after only 21 innings together.
Partnerships between Anjum Chopra and Mithali Raj (57 innings) and Mithali and Punam Raut (34 innings) had yielded 13 fifty-plus stands each. The Mandhana-Rawal pair is now only behind 18 fifty-plus partnerships for Harmanpreet Kaur & Mithali Raj, and even they took 56 innings to get there.
In the 15th over, they were 73/0. It was the highest opening stand for India against Australia in Women’s World Cups, going past the 69-run stand from Anjum Chopra and Anagha Deshpande in the 2009 World Cup.
Rawal was dropped when the partnership was at 93 in the 18th over. They went past 100 runs together in a jiffy, lining up their fourth 100-plus partnership of 2025. That’s second best again, behind Australia’s Belinda Clark and Lisa Keightley (five in the year 2000) and New Zealand’s Suzie Bates and Rachel Priest (four in 2015).
Moreover, only Mithali and Punam Raut have more century stands between them for India (seven in 34 innings), and Mandhana-Rawal are not too far away with six already in 21 innings.
