Captain Harmanpreet Kaur (56 off 27 balls) almost single-handedly took India Women to a somewhat competitive total. But the bowlers couldn’t quite back their captain’s batting effort up as Australia Women registered a six-wicket win at Lord’s on Sunday to crush the Indian team’s hopes of a Women’s T20 World Cup semi-final berth.
Australia will face the West Indies in the first semi-final on Tuesday, while South Africa, who needed India to lose at Lord’s, get ready for England on Thursday.
The India skipper’s strokeplay, especially in the 20th over which fetched her side 23 runs, had pushed the team total to 170/4. Thanks to Harmanpreet, whose innings comprised six boundaries and three maximums, India managed 34 off the last two overs of their innings to give their bowlers a fair amount of momentum. Australia were equally a tad sloppy on the field, shelving three catches.
The way India’s bowlers began, one did feel that the confidence of having beaten the Australians in the semi-finals of last year’s Women’s ODI World Cup has had a decent impact on them. Australia were 68/3 in the 10th over and feeling the pressure of the required run rate, which was above 10 runs per over at that stage.
But just when it mattered, Ellyse Perry and Ashleigh Gardner proved why Australia are the best in women’s cricket. As soon as both batters had settled down, they were at their efficient best in picking up boundaries in almost every over alongside rotating the strike with ones and twos.
The pressure quickly shifted to the Indian bowling group, including in-form spinners Shree Charani and Deepti Sharma as even they seemed to be having no clue on how to keep Perry and Gardner at bay. Together, Perry and Gardner smashed a 100-run stand for the fourth-wicket which eventually took Australia home with an over to spare.
Harmanpreet later acknowledged that India do need to improve against stronger teams. “We need to improve against good teams,” she said.
Brief scores: India Women 170/4 (Harmanpreet Kaur 56; Sophie Molineux 2/46). Australia Women 172/4 in 19 ovs (Ellyse Perry 56, Ashleigh Gardner 53 n.o.; Shree Charani 2/32). Australia Women won by 6 wickets.
