And that's all we have from the ODI series in Bengaluru. Do join us next week, as the caravan moves from Bengaluru to Chennai, for that Test match at Chepauk. Until then, on behalf of our scorers Harshith and Chetan, and my co-commentator Chandan, it's goodbye, good night! Take care.
Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur: The last two camps we had - one in Mumbai and one in Bangalore - gave us a lot of confidence. The way our bowlers bowled in this series, credit goes to them. They were outstanding. These conditions aren't the easiest for the bowlers. I have trust in all the bowlers. I just tell the bowlers to stick to their strengths, no matter wherever they bowl. The plan was simple, just to bowl within the stumps. We'll enjoy the win tonight, but the Test match is coming, and then the T20s. We'll have to plan for that as well.
In news that should surprise absolutely nobody, the most straightforward player of the series award in history goes to Smriti Mandhana: Unfortunate to miss the hundred today. I was batting much better than I did in the first two matches. Really happy we won the series 3-0. I think today the bowlers bowled really well. For us, it was just about applying ourselves and going forward. This is just the start. Hardwork is always there for the big picture. There's the Tests, T20s, then Asia Cup, then the T20 World Cup. We had a good batters camp, Amol sir worked on our technical stuff. Batting long in that camp helped us through this series. After today's over, I don't think I'm getting bowling again. Got lucky with a wicket last game, but always good to add a different skill.
Deepti Sharma is the player of the match for her spell of 2/27 in 10 overs: I really enjoyed it. Just delivered according to what I'd planned. I needed to back my stock ball and my strengths. Just kept things simple and was ready for all situations. Sometimes, I need to contain runs, sometimes I won't get wickets, but in those situations, I know that I need to adapt.
The South African captain Laura Wolvaardt: Didn't have enough runs on the board at the end of the day. Maybe not the best start, but got ourselves into a decent position, but unfortunate to lose too many wickets and not build any partnerships after that. Looking at how they chased, I think we needed 300 again. One or two dismissals could've been a bit unlucky, but we needed to stay there. I think we've played good cricket in patches, we need to be a lot more consistent with the bat and the ball. We don't play too much red ball cricket, don't really know what to expect here in the subcontinent. Have a few days to refresh and get onto that, but I'm hugely excited by that.
Shreyanka Patil: I wanted to get Marizanne Kapp out. I visualised last night, making the batter drive to covers or mid-on, and then take a caught and bowled. Whenever the captain asks me to bowl, I'm happy. I didn't know I was going to bowl the first over. I was happy though. When we got the first win, we knew we had to keep repeating it. Once we got the momentum, we knew we had to make it 3-0. The way Priya and the other batters batted today was great, the approach. The bowlers also tried different things in the death overs.
Arundhati Reddy: I've never been great at taking caught and bowleds, but I was lucky to have a couple stick today. They had a good opening partnership, we needed a wicket at that point. We just needed to stick to the plans we had made at our meetings. Today's wicket was a bit slower. You had to adjust and use a lot of slower ones and stick to bowling consistently. This was a small adjustment that I had to make today.
8:19pm: Ever since the 20th over of the first innings, when Arundhati Reddy dismissed Laura Wolvaardt, India have been in complete control of this game. A superb comeback with the ball set the tone for a romp with the bat. Mandhana missed out on a third consecutive century. But her 90 made it 343 runs for the series, as she once again regaled the Chinnaswamy crowd with some pristine strokeplay. There were cameos for Shafali and Punia before another decent contribution from Harmanpreet Kaur, who will be happy that her form has turned around in this series. It was a big series for India, and they've ticked a number of boxes. As for South Africa, their batting relied only on a couple of players, and the bowling looked just a bit toothless without being able to call upon the services of Marizanne Kapp. In the end, it was India's first ODI series whitewash since 2019.
