India’s hopes of reaching back-to-back ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Final were handed with a massive blow as reigning champions Australia defeated Harmanpreet Kaur’s side by a thin margin of 5 runs. The Women in Blue were attempting to land their first ever World cup trophy but yesterday’s defeat means, India will have to wait a bit more long.
Expectations were extremely high from India’s perspective especially after Shafali Verma’s U-19 team won the inaugural ICC U-19 Women’s T20 World cup also at South Africa. But a poor fielding and bowling performance helped Meg Lanning’s side seal their spot in the final and are in line to win their 6th ICC T20 World cup title.
Australia had won the toss at Newlands and elected to bat first. India were missing Pooja Vastrakar in their line-up with Sneh Rana coming in as her replacement. Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney gave the Aussies a perfect start before Radha Yadav removed the former for 25 off 26.
It's not easy for a team to win when only 2 out of 11 players perform . Just feeling sad for these two 💔#INDWvsAUSW pic.twitter.com/gwKjQreDq5
— Yashvi. (@BreatheKohli) February 23, 2023
However, Beth Mooney’s 54, Meg Lanning’s 49 and Ashleigh Gardner’s quickfire 31 helped them reach to a total of 172. In response, India lost 3 early wickets with Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana and Yastika Bhatia scoring a combined 15 runs together.
World cup semi final match jersey no "7" runout tough to forget.
7 – 💔 – 🇮🇳#AUSvIND #INDWvsAUSW #WorldCup #Dhoni #HarmanpreetKaur #MSDhoni
Ms Dhoni 🐐& Harmanpreet Kaur🐐 💔 pic.twitter.com/JPWGqAgDKh— Vishnu Dhoni (@vishnukumar2017) February 24, 2023
Later on, Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues stood for a partnership but the latter feathered an unplayable bouncer to depart for 43. Captain Harmanpreet Kaur was the only batter to score a half-century but her innings also ended after an unlucky run-out.
The Indian dressing room was surrounded by sad faces with Harmanpreet Kaur crying inside the field. Former Indian cricketer Anjum Chopra was seen consoling a broken Harmanpreet after the tough loss.
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“My Intention was to give the captain some empathy because that’s all I can offer from the outside. It was an emotional moment for both of us. It was a player-to-player moment with her. We were just trying to lessen our sorrows by sharing them.” – Chopra shared her thoughts after the match.
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