The Indian women’s cricket team faced its third consecutive defeat in the five-match T20I series against South Africa in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

With this, the hosts took an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series, handing India its first T20I series defeat in 2 years since the home defeat against Australia in 2024.

India was on a brilliant run before this series, having won five of its last six T20I series, including two 5-0 clean sweeps over Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

But here, India lost their third match in a row as South African captain Laura Wolvaardt blasted a rapid century to chase down 192 in only 16.2 overs.

Laura continued her luck with the toss, winning it for the third time in as many games and once again asking India to bat first, in which they struggled in the first two games.

This time, though, the Indian openers got off to an excellent start as Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma had a good 51-run power play to build a solid base for the innings.

But then in the eighth over, at the score of 68, India lost two successive wickets in two deliveries, first Smriti (37) and then Jemimah Rodrigues (0).

However, the team didn’t lose its momentum as captain Harmanpreet Kaur, alongside Shafali, continued the aggressive attack, and both players scored half-centuries.

This gives India a chance to score a big total, and they did so, finishing with 192 for 4 – the highest total in an India-South Africa women’s T20I game.

But the South African opener Laura and Sune Luus made a meal out of it and, with an even more aggressive display, built an 183-run partnership.

Indian fielders made South Africa’s task even easier by dropping two catches of Laura in the 4th and 14th overs, which proved costly, as Laura went on to score a massive 115 off just 53 deliveries.