The Australia A women registered a seven-wicket win over India A women in the third T20 at the Allan Border Field in Brisbane on Sunday, August 11 to register a whitewash in the three-match series.
Electing to field first, Australia struck on just the second delivery of the game as Tayla Vlaeminck knocked over opener Shubha Satheesh for nought to peg India back early.
Right-arm off-break bowler Charli Knott also wasted no time in making an impact and dismissed Priya Punia to reduce India to 21/2 after 5.3 overs.
India A women could never recover from the early loss of their two openers and kept on losing more wickets as the game progressed. The tourists lost half their side with just 47 runs on the board and were staring down the barrel.
However, skipper Minnu Mani (22 runs off 23 deliveries) and Kiran Navgire joined hands in the middle and stitched a 57-run stand for the sixth wicket to bail the team out of crisis.
While Mani played the role of an anchor and struck two fours and a six, Navgire acted as an enforcer and took the attack to the Aussie bowlers.
Navgire who plays for UP Warriorz in the Women's Premier League (WPL) played an enterprising knock of 38 at a strike rate of 190.00.
Navgire's quick blitz brought India back into the contest and she perished with two deliveries left in India's innings. Her knock was studded with six boundaries and a maximum. Her cameo helped India post a respectable total of 120 on the board.
As it was the case in the previous two contests, leg-break bowler Grace Parson troubled the Indian batters and was the pick of all the Aussie bowlers. Parson bagged a two-for and received healthy support from Hancock and Maitlan Brown who also bagged two wickets apiece.
India A bowlers needed to make deeper inroads into the hosts' line-up and that too quite early, however, Tahlia Wilson (39 off 26 balls) and Katie Mack (10 off 11 balls) foiled their attempts.
India saw the back of both the Aussie openers by 7.1 overs and tried to claw back some momentum. However, a 48-run stand for the third wicket between skipper Tahlia McGrath and Charli Knott (19 off 20 balls) put an end to India's hopes of staging a comeback in the contest.
McGrath led the chase from the front and remained unbeaten on 51 off 22 deliveries. She smashed eight fours and two sixes and struck at a rate of 231.81.
