Australia defended a moderate total of 151 and reduced the Indians to 142 runs in a complexion changing contest: who by this occasion had batted seven.
Chasing victory, defending champions took four wickets in the final over to complete the task.
Australian national Tahlia McGrath, making her first appearance in the tournament, took over captaincy from the injured Alyssa Healy and helped the team reach T20 World Cup semifinals also delivering a nasty blow to formidable India. McGrath, taking over because of skipper Healy’s foot injury, led from the front in Sharjah on Sunday with a brisk knock of 32 as the champions again demonstrated their enviable depth July due to cramp in the forward of their knights their nine run victory Sunday.
Chasing a target of 151-8, halfway through the innings the statistics assured McGrath’s side of qualification as they had done enough. But the other side unbeaten managed not to let their stranglehold, limiting the Indians at 142-9 – by taking four wickets in Annabel Sutherland’s final over – and cobLIN the most sought about their hopes of qualification to the knockout because they were bereft of any possibility of doing so.
Australia defended a moderate total of 151 and reduced the Indians to 142 runs in a complexion changing contest: who by this occasion had batted seven.
Chasing victory, defending champions took four wickets in the final over to complete the task.
Australian national Tahlia McGrath, making her first appearance in the tournament, took over captaincy from the injured Alyssa Healy and helped the team reach T20 World Cup semifinals also delivering a nasty blow to formidable India.
McGrath, taking over because of skipper Healy’s foot injury, led from the front in Sharjah on Sunday with a brisk knock of 32 as the champions again demonstrated their enviable depth July due to cramp in the forward of their knights their nine run victory Sunday.
Chasing a target of 151-8, halfway through the innings the statistics assured McGrath’s side of qualification as they had done enough. But the other side unbeaten managed not to let their stranglehold, limiting the Indians at 142-9 – by taking four wickets in Annabel Sutherland’s final over – and cobLIN the most sought about their hopes of qualification to the knockout because they were bereft of any possibility of doing so.
In case New Zealand manages to win on Monday against Pakistan, India will be out and the Kiwis will progress. Pakistan still have an outside chance too if they win.
Australia will have been put screaming back into the tormented swing in the final as long as 55td Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who impacts 55td without losing her wicket and almost changes the game as they have to get in 14 runs in the last Sutherland over.
But, as all true athletes on the day after her birthday, which happens to be the 23rd, she is serene and calm chill out, and gives away just 5 runs and takes 2 wickets and two other Indian batters run out does happen.
It ensured that Australia continued their streak of reaching the knockout stage of every T20 World cup held so far and also completed their 15th win in a row in this tournament.
Whether it was important to preserve the perfect record of 100%, McGrath grinned, ‘Of course. We wish to come out victorious in every encounter that we take part.’
“Today was going to be a very big challenge for us, and we knew it. They came really hard at us, and I just have to say I am very proud of the group. We held our nerves at the end there.” It is not clear whether Healy, who sustained an ‘acute right foot injury’ while playing against Pakistan on Friday, would be available for the knockout matches; the team maintained that the 34-year-old ‘will continue to be assessed and her availability will be decided at an appropriate time’.
However, on the day fast bowler Tara Vlaeminck was ruled out of the tournament due to shoulder dislocation and Mackenzie Hynes was brought in as a replacement, Meghan McGrath performed well as fill-in captain when she broke an Australian Women’s record by becoming the fastest to score 1000 runs in T20Is beating long-standing skipper Meg Lanning.
After winning the toss and choosing to bat Brothers, who was supposed to reappear in only the third over of the innings, was dismissed as early as the third over herself thanks to Renuka Singh’s twin strike on Beth Mooney and Georgia Wareham Brazilian scored four fours in her score of 32 on 26 while sharing a 62 in the run with Grace Harris opened the scoring in which she made 41 40 from 41 deliveries.
Ellyse Perry delivered a brief but important knock when it mattered, smashing one out of only two sixes on the day within her 23-ball 32, and it was followed by a last hurrah from Phoebe Litchfield, who blasted the last ball for another six to make sure Australia scored 150, which would be the highest score any team made at Sharjah in this competition.
Australia suffered from three more dropped catches by Megan Schutt, Sophie Molineux and Darcie Brown, but even Kaur recognised afterwards their otherwise excellent fielding was the key difference between the teams. The Australian bowlers all performed admirably, particularly the economical Schutt (1-25), who had Ash Gardner (1-32) catch Jemimah Rodrigues at deep mid-wicket, who herself had Shafali Verma (20 off 13) caught at long-on. Due to her performance in the final over and with the crowd that was largely in favor of India.
This was the case because she was named Player of the Match. More than pleased, Sophie Molineux (2-32), who was eventually adjudged player of the match after claiming two key wickets of Deepti Sharma (29 off 25) and Smriti Mandhana (6 off 12), while Sutherland’s 2-22 could have easily earned her the player of the match honors too. In her last over, which was in the thick of a highly pro-India crowd, she bowled out the dangerous Pooja Vastrakar stumps clean and lbw to Radha Yadav to finish off the game.