In a match that went right down to the wire, Australia defeated India to enter the final of the Women's T20 World Cup 2023.
Meg Lanning won the toss and decided to bat. Bowling first, India were sloppy on the field. On many occasions, it looked like the Indian women were just going through the motions. Australia went on score 43 off the first six overs. Radha Yadav presented India with the first breakthrough and got rid of Healy. India dropped Mooney and missed a stumping opportunity of Lanning. Both of them went on to score the majority of the runs for Australia. Gardner flourished in the end and powered the team to a daunting total of 172.
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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.
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.
"Can't be unluckier than this, to get that momentum back when me and Jemi were batting. We didn't expect this. The way I got runout, can't be unluckier than that. We discussed about fighting till the last ball," Kaur said during the post-match presentations.
Well, that pretty much sums it up. Australia, once again, showed they are the side to beat anytime they step on the field. The second semifinal is scheduled between South Africa and England on Feb. 24.
