Team India's disappointing run in white-ball cricket ended with a 1-2 series loss against Australia in Navi Mumbai as the Women in Blue suffered a 7-wicket defeat in the decider on Tuesday, January 9. After winning the series opener, it has been a couple of poor games for the batters that led to India's downfall in the second and the third T20Is. On Tuesday, both Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana had started well as India were 51/1 after the powerplay, however, another middle-order collapse led to the hosts' undoing.
Both Shafali and Mandhana had begun well with a positive intent before Megan Schutt dismissed the former on 26. Mandhana played a couple of good shots after the powerplay but she couldn't go on for long as a procession followed. Annabel Sutherland dismissed Jemimah on the final delivery of the 8th over before Georgia Wareham struck with the big one of Mandhana. In the very next over Sutherland cleaned up Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur to leave the Women in Blue reeling at 66/4.
Richa Ghosh with a counter-attacking knock of 34 and Amanjot Kaur and Pooja Vastrakar with their cameos helped India to get to 147 but eventually, it wasn't enough. Any hope India would have had of winning the game was killed by Australian openers Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney in the powerplay itself.
Healy in particular was in demolition mode as she slammed a 34-ball half-century. After scoring 54 runs off the powerplay, the opening partnership lasted for 85, which effectively shut India out of the game. Tahlia McGrath and Ellyse Perry got out in consecutive balls but it was too late as a calm Beth Mooney at the other end ensured there were no more hiccups and Australia coasted home to a 7-wicket win.
India lost all the white-ball series in the last month or so, 1-2 against England in T20Is, 0-3 against Australia in ODIs and now 1-2 against Australia in T20Is as Amol Majumdar and Co. have a lot of thinking to do before the T20 World Cup in October-November.
