India women 60 for 3 (Rodrigues 40*, Matthews 2-7) beat West Indies women 59 for 9 (Radha Yadav 2-6, Sharma 2-12) by seven wickets
India continued their dominant run against a West Indies side that seems to have lost its way without regular captain Stafanie Taylor, winning the third T20I by seven wickets to take a 3-0 lead in the five-match series. In the first two games, West Indies had barely managed to get past 100, losing by 84 runs and ten wickets respectively, and it got worse for them this time, as they limped to 59 for 9 from their 20 overs before India got past the target with enough and more in hand.
It wasn't easy going for India in their modest chase, though. Hayley Matthews rocked them at the start, getting Shafali Verma stumped by Shemaine Campbelle in the first over for a duck and then having Smriti Mandhana caught by Shakera Salman in the fifth over for 3, leaving India at 13 for 2 at that stage and just 16 for 2 at the end of six overs.
But there was only so much Matthews and the rest of the bowlers could do after the batters had put up so woeful a performance. Harmanpreet Kaur fell too, for 7 to Afy Fletcher, but Jemimah Rodrigues could just knock the ball around without taking unnecessary risks and chip away at the chase. She hit four fours in her 51-ball innings, getting to 40 when she hit the winning single to take India to their target in 16.4 overs with Deepti Sharma by her side.
Sharma had played a leading role in the first half of the match too, picking up two wickets as she and Radha Yadav led a strong bowling performance where all the six bowlers in action picked up at least a wicket each.
Matthews fell first, caught and bowled by Anuja Patil, and Radha sent back Campbelle by the end of the Powerplay too. There was no real resistance at any stage of the innings by the West Indians, who were batting first out of choice, as only Chedean Nation and Chinelle Henry got into double-digits, scoring identical 11s. The wickets fell frequently, and it was only some dead-batting from Anisa Mohammed and Selman at the end that prevented the home side from being bowled out.
Radha returned 2 for 6 from her four overs, while Sharma had 2 for 12 from four as seven of the wickets fell to the Indian spinners, Pooja Vastrakar's dismissal of Kyshona Knight and Natasha McLean's run-out the exceptions.
India, who won the preceding ODI series 2-1, and West Indies play the fourth game of the T20I series on Saturday, also in Providence.
