Mandhana's India chase a 3-0 sweep of Zimbabwe in the Raipur series finale

India Women lead 2-0 going into the final T20I against Zimbabwe Women in Raipur, with only a clean sweep left to play for in Smriti Mandhana's first series as full-time captain

India settled the three-match series on Sunday, overhauling Zimbabwe's 102 for 8 inside nine overs to win by nine wickets. The third and last T20I starts at 7pm local time on Tuesday at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, which has staged the whole series.

Shafali Verma had the second match finished before the halfway point of the chase with 55 from 25 balls, and Mandhana was 47 not out at the other end. The two put on 96 for the first wicket.

Zimbabwe, on their first bilateral tour of India, have lost by four wickets and then by nine, and come to the last match still looking for a win to take home.

A series won inside nine overs

Zimbabwe chose to bat in the second T20I and reached 102 for 8, with Chipo Mugeri-Tiripano top-scoring on 34 from 32 balls and captain Josephine Nkomo unbeaten on 27. The pair added 45 for the fourth wicket.

Niki Prasad was the most effective of the Indian bowlers with 2-7 from two overs, and Kranti Gaud, Deepti Sharma, Nandani Sharma and Sree Charani took one apiece.

Shafali hit six fours and four sixes before Beloved Biza had her, by which point the result was long settled. India finished the chase with more than eleven overs unused.

Deepti and Prasad rescue the opener

The first match on Friday was closer than the margin suggests. Zimbabwe made 114 for 5, built on 43 from Sharne Mayers and 42 from Kelis Ndhlovu, and India then slipped to 19 for 4 in the chase.

Deepti Sharma made 49 and Niki Prasad, playing her first T20I, finished 39 not out. Their stand of 82 for the fifth wicket carried India to a four-wicket win.

Nandani Sharma had taken 2-11 for India, while Nyasha Gwanzura's 3-18 was the best return of the match for Zimbabwe.

Mandhana's first series in charge

The tour is Mandhana's first assignment as India's full-time captain in any format, with Shafali Verma as her deputy. She has led the side before as a stand-in.

At the toss on Friday she made it clear the series sits inside a longer plan. "There's one eye on the Champions Trophy," she said.

Jemimah Rodrigues is missing the tour as she recovers from a hamstring injury, and Shreyanka Patil, Renuka Singh Thakur, Radha Yadav and Bharti Fulmali, all part of the Asian Games squad, were left out of the T20I group. Harmanpreet Kaur, who led India before the change, remains in the squad.

Zimbabwe look for something to show for the tour

Zimbabwe kept the squad that beat West Indies in an ODI last month, and Josephine Nkomo set modest terms for the trip at the first toss. "It's a fairly young squad, and we're hoping to learn a lot and get a great deal out of this series," she said.

No Zimbabwe batter has passed 43 in the series so far, and the side has not reached 115 in either innings. Mugeri-Tiripano and Nkomo have been the most reliable, with the top order undone early in both matches.

Raipur is staging its first women's international cricket, and the series is Zimbabwe's first bilateral meeting with India in the women's game.

Black armbands for Sarah Dambanevana

Both teams wore black armbands and observed a minute's silence before the first match for Sarah Dambanevana, the former Zimbabwe fast bowler and international umpire, who died earlier this month at 36 after what the ICC described as a brief illness.

Dambanevana became the first female umpire from Zimbabwe on the ICC Development Umpires Panel in 2022 and stood in 72 senior internationals, 48 of them women's T20Is, the last of them at the Women's T20 World Cup Global Qualifier in Nepal in February.

"Her achievements helped pave the way for more women to pursue careers in cricket officiating," ICC chairman Jay Shah said after her death.

The teams move on to Vadodara after Tuesday, where the first of three one-day internationals is at the BCA Stadium on October 23.

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