Online Sports Desk
Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma on Sunday (October 18) broke the world record for the 50-plus partnerships, for any wicket, in a calendar year in Women’s T20Is. Their 96-run stand against Zimbabwe in the second T20I at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur, was their ninth in 2026, breaking the record of Hong Kong’s Yasmin Daswani and Natasha Miles, who have eight this year.
Their partnership helped India chase down 103 in 8.5 overs and seal a nine-wicket win, confirming a 2-0 series triumph with a third match to go.
Among full-member nations, Mandhana and Shafali held the previous best record in the list with seven 50-plus stands in 2024. Two other partnerships have had six such stands — New Zealand’s Suzie Bates-Sophie Devine and Australia’s Beth Mooney-Alyssa Healy.
In the match, Mandhana and Shafali also became the first batting pair to score over 1,000 partnership runs in a calendar year. They were already leading the charts for the year.
Asked to bowl first, India never allowed Zimbabwe an easy run with the bat. After three overs, the visitors had managed only ten runs when Nandani Sharma bowled opener Kelis Ndhlovu out for an 11-ball duck. There was only one substantial stand of 45 (36) between Chipo Mugeri-Tiripano and captain Josephine Nkomo as India picked wickets regularly otherwise.
India used as many as seven bowlers, and Niki Prasad was the only one to take two wickets, which came off the first two balls of her T20I career. With Zimbabwe held for 102/8 after 20 overs, Mandhana and Shafali batted with utmost freedom, hitting 12 fours and six sixes to seal the win in 8.5 overs — the quickest chase of 100 or more runs in women’s T20Is.
