England vs Pakistan: Tammy Beaumont century seals series whitewash for hosts

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Tammy Beaumont smashed 168 not out as England beat Pakistan by 202 runs in the third one-day international to complete a series whitewash.

The 25-year-old’s score was England’s second highest in ODIs, in a total of 366-4 batting first at Taunton.

Katherine Brunt picked up five wickets and Anya Shrubsole (2-20) and Laura Marsh (3-29) helped dismiss Pakistan for 164 in the 45th over.

England have clinched the ODI series 3-0, with three Twenty20s to come.

Beaumont’s innings was the joint-fourth highest ODI score in women’s cricket history and only five short of Charlotte Edwards’ effort from 1997 on the all-time England list.

She hit 20 fours in her 144-ball innings, and shared two century stands – 166 with Georgia Elwiss (77) and 119 with Natalie Sciver (48).

The Kent batter had scored her maiden ODI century in the record-breakingsecond game at Worcester, where the shorter boundaries had made aggressive scoring easy.

At Taunton, Beaumont failed to hit a six, but showed plenty of variety in her boundaries, including reverse-sweeping the Pakistan spinners on several occasions.

In this ODI series, Beaumont’s scores read 70, 104, and 168no.

Their latest defeat saw Pakistan’s fielding let them down again. They spilled numerous catches off Beaumont and Elwiss, and gave away several avoidable boundaries – but the hosts had their moments to forget as well.

England dropped a couple of catches at the start of the tourists’ innings, Lauren Winfield and captain Heather Knight the culprits, both off Brunt’s bowling.

The ground fielding also dipped in quality, allowing Pakistan to provide some resistance with the bat, and much like the second ODI, England had to wait until late in the run chase to confirm the victory.

Brunt was rewarded for her efforts with wickets in successive 43rd-over deliveries, and fittingly finished off proceedings with her fifth victim.

England captain Heather Knight: “Captaincy is easy when the girls play like that! The pleasing thing is how many different people have stood up and contributed. It’s exciting cricket to watch and hopefully it will be the same going forward.

“There was a lot of change and talk about our batting order and I can’t be more pleased how we responded. It was different tactics with bigger boundaries and we adapted well.

“Katherine Brunt bowled well and cleaned up the tail, and Laura Marsh did well too. Laura reads the game superbly and changes her pace up smartly as well.”

Pakistan captain Sana Mir: “All credit to England for the way they have played throughout the series. If you’re not on target, you will be punished. We knew the England bowlers are pretty good. It was difficult for us to chase such a big total and it was important for us to bat 50 overs, which we’ve been unable to do.

“We’ve not been able to play a lot of one-day cricket. We’re more into T20 and hopefully we can take the positives out of this series and play well in the T20s.”