Harmanpreet Kaur battled herself to control her tears during the post-match presentation following India's loss to Australia by 5 runs. "Can't feel unluckier than this. We got the momentum back with Jemi (Rodrigues). To lose from here, we weren't expecting this," said Harmanpreet, as she struggled for words.
Kaur and Jemimah's partnership made it really easy towards the end for India, but like always in major matches, the team choked in the end and it was all fueled by the skipper's unfortunate and untimely run-out.
"The way I got run out, (it) can't be unluckier than that. Putting in the effort was important and we were happy to go to the last ball. We wanted to fight till the last ball. Even after losing the first two wickets, we knew we had a good batting line-up. I should give credit to Jemimah, she gave us the momentum. Happy to see some good performances," she added.
On the team's sloppy effort in the field, Kaur quipped, "We again gave some easy catches away. When you have to win, you have to take your chances. We can only learn from these mistakes.
Chasing 173, India got off to the worst of the possible starts, losing three quick wickets. Jemimah and Harmanpreet Kaur stitched together a great partnership to get India on course for a stupendous victory., but it went a little downhill from there on. Kaur got out to an unfortunate run-out and Rich Ghosh, who has been in rich form throughout the tournament, followed soon after.
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It all came down to Deepti Sharma and Sneh Rana and the equation read 20 off the last 2 overs for India. The pair could only manage 4 runs in the penultimate over and 16, in the end, proved too much for India and the Aussies won the game by 5 runs. Fair to say, India, once again, choked in India because, at the halfway mark, it was their game to lose.
(Inputs PTI)
