Hello and welcome to Sportstar's live coverage of the Women's T20 World Cup. India Women takes on Australia in its campaign opener in Sydney. I am
Anjana Senthil and I will be taking you through the paces of the game today.
India will consider itself lucky to walk away with a win today, after finding itself on the back foot more than once in this game. However, it takes more than luck to trump a champion side like Australia. Deepti Sharma 46-ball 49 and a spectacular 4/19 from Poonam Yadav swung things in India's favour despite some goof work from Lanning & Co. Safe to say that this upset spices things up right at the start in this tournament. India walks away with a shot in the arm with this 17-run win over defending champion, Australia. Next, Thailand will take on West Indies tomorrow. Make sure you come back tomorrow that too! Also stick around for our post match analysis. Until then, it's goodbye!
As it happened:
Australia innings:
INDIA WINS BY 17 RUNS. India bowls out Australia for 115 in the last ball. Needing 21 to win, Australia could manage only three in the last over.
19 overs: 112/8: Australia needs 21 runs in the last over to win.
18.4 overs. 108/8: Kimmince departs as Jemimah effects a run out with a flat throw from the boundary line. Sharma collects and completes the formality in the non-striker's end.
17.3 overs : India celebrates Gardner's wicket after Poonam's ball dislodges the bails . But replays show the ball bouncing twice before hitting the stumps and is called a no-ball.
16.2 overs: 101/7: A brilliant stumping from Bhatia to send Sutherland back. The Australian, stepping down, fails to read Shikha's line. A diving Bhatia completes a beautiful stumping, her second of the night. She has contributed to four dismissals tonight.
16 overs: 100/6 Gardner eases things a bit for Australia with a six off Gayakwad. She steps down the track to swing it to a six in the long-on region. She follows it up with a single to take Australia to 100.
15 overs: 91/6: Australia needs 42 runs in 30 balls to win. India was 95/3 at the end of its 15 overs. Australia has lost a lot of wickets but it bats deep. It is still anybody's game.
14 overs: 82/6: Poonam Yadav does it again. Sends a wrong'un and gets Jonassen to nick one to the keeper. Bhatia doesn't miss this time and India gains the upperhand.
12 overs. Aus 76/5: Two wickets in two balls for Poonam Yadav! It could have been a hat-trick, but wicketkeeper Bhatia drops the ball. It was a tough catch to take. What an over for India. The team has the upper hand now.
10 overs: 67/3: Poonam Yadav gets the wicket of Alyssa Healy shortly after the Australian scored her third T20 half-century. Australia needs 66 runs in 60 balls to win.
8.3 overs: 55/2: Rajeshwari Gayakwad shows the door to Australian captain Meg Lanning. The ball, tossed up, takes a faint edge and wicketkeeper Bhatia latches on to it.
8 overs. 52/1. 50 up for Australia. Alyssa Healy has hit 40 of the 52 the host has scored so far.
Fun fact: Healy had scores of 0, 0, and 4 in her last three innings against India! Not much fun for India at the moment.
5.4 overs 32/1. WICKET: India gets it first wicket. Mooney offers a catch at backward point to Gayakwad off Pandey's bowling. India needed that!.
5 overs: 30/0: No breakthrough for India yet. Australia coolly collects 30 runs in the first five over at run a ball.
3 overs 19/0 : India challenges an lbw decision, but Deepti's ball was way outside the leg stump. Quite an unneccessary challenge. But what does one do if there isn't sufficient total to defend? But some relief for the Indians - only two runs in the over.
2 overs: 17/0: Alyssa Healy takes Rajeshwari Gayakwad to task with two boundaries. 12 runs from the over for Australia.
1 overs. 5/0: Smriti Mandhana stops a certain boundary with an outstanding reverse throw while diving over the boundary rope, but the effort seems to have come at a cost. She walks out of the field to get treated for a left shoulder niggle.
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20 overs: 132/4. India ends the last over with six runs to set a target of 133 for Australia. Will it be enough?
19 overs: 126/4: Just 13 runs from the last two overs. No sense of urgency from the Indian batters, yet!
17 overs: 113/4: Deepti finally finds the gaps. Two fours and 15 runs for India in the over bowled by Jonassen. A much needed fillip for India.
16 overs: 100/4 : Desperate times for India. Jemimah Rodrigues challenges an lbw decision, but unsuccessful. Australia breaks the 53-run partnership after India's score touches 100. Jemimah - 26 runs off 33 balls.
15 overs: 95/3: India has still managed to keep the score at over run a over. But will that be enough in a T20 match?
14 overs: 89/3: India is still going for the singles. No hits to the boundary in the last three overs. Only six overs remaining against the four-time world champion. Both Jemimah and Sharma are well set and are into the 20s. To their credit
Meanwhile, the fans are out in full force to cheer the Indian team:
10 overs: 63/3: At the halfway mark, India has scored 63 at a little more than run a ball. India will have to accelerate now to put up a challenging total. What would be a good score here?
9 overs: 57/3: Another over of safe batting. Sharma and Rodrigues resort to singles to keep the scoreboard ticking. 6 from the risk-free over.
8 overs: 51/3: A quiet over for India at last. Runs have dried, but no loss of wicket for the first time in four overs. Should India batters keep going for the shots for save the wickets for a final onslaught? Jemimah Rodrigues and Deepti Sharma at the crease now. India has a long tail and this partnership will be extremely crucial for India's fortunes.
7 overs: 49/3: Captain stumped. It's all happening for Australia. Three massively successful overs to peg India back with three quick wickets. Harmpanpreet Kaur steps out to Jonassen but completely misses the line to get stumped. She could add only two to India's score.
6 overs: 46/2: Shafali's stint ends. Shafali's thrilling run cut short by the experienced Perry. She departs after offering a catch to Sutherland at mid-on.
5 overs: 42/1: Smriti Mandhana departs. Jess Jonassen, who was majorly responsible for Australia's title win in the tri-series, does the damage immediately. Smriti Mandhana is out lbw after scoring 10 runs.
4 overs: 40/0: Shafali Verma, 16, hit four boundaries against World No. 1 Megan Schutt to finish a fantastic over for India.
3 overs. Ind 24/0. 13 runs in the third over off Molly Strano. Shafali comes to the party this time with a four and a mighty six.
2 overs: Ind 11/0: A drop and two boundaries. A miss first and then two good hits to the boundary. Ellyse Perry had Mandhana offering a catch to Molly at mid-wicket, but the Indian gets a reprieve. Australia pays for it immediately as Mandhana follows it up with a mid off boundary and a beautiful cover drive.
First over: India begins cautiously against offspinner Molly Strano.
The players are walking into the middle now for the customary national anthems. You can sense the excitement, there are quite a lot of fans in attendance at the Sydney Showgrounds.
- Australia received a big blow yesterday when its pace bowler Tayla Vlaeminck was ruled out of the tournament with a foot injury. Australia has roped in Molly Strano to replace her. Strano, off-spinner, is coming into the side after more than two years. She can't get a bigger platform to make a comeback than this.
TOSS : Australia has won the toss and will bowl first.
Playing XI:
India: Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Deepti Sharma, Veda Krishnamurthy, Shikha Pandey, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Arundhati Reddy, Radha Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad
What captain Harmanpreet said at the toss: “I definitely wanted to bowl, but the toss is not in your hands so we just want to play good cricket. We are playing three spinners and two medium pacers.'"
Australia: Alyssa Healy, Beth Mooney, Ashleigh Gardner, Meg Lanning (c), Ellyse Perry, Rachael Haynes, Annabel Sutherland, Jess Jonassen, Delissa Kimmince, Molly Strano, Megan Schutt
What captain Meg Lanning said: " We are not sure about the conditions, so we're going to have a bowl first and see what happens."
We have prepared quite an elaborate ready reckoner for you to get up to speed with about the Indian team and the tournament. Click here for the full coverage.
PREVIEW: AUS WOMEN vs IND WOMEN
The Indian women’s cricket team will be aiming for much needed consistency when it opens its bid for an elusive ICC trophy with the T20 World Cup opener against defending champions Australia here on Friday.
Inconsistency has plagued India for a long time and a classic example was its performance in the recently held tri-series in Australia where it reached the final.
It won and lost a game against the more accomplished England and Australia before losing to the mighty host, which has won the T20 World Cup a record four times out of the six editions held so far.
India’ middle and lower-order needs to do a lot better than what it has been doing to beat the likes of Australia and England in the knock-out stages, something that has been been acknowledged by star opener Smriti Mandhana.
The team needs to ensure that the frequent middle-order collapses are not repeated in the showpiece event.
The southpaw and 16-year-old Shafali Verma will have to get India off to a flying start more often than not in the competition.
Expectations are high from skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, who too has suffered from inconsistency and would like to correct that, beginning with the opener against Australia.
In the bowling department, it has heavily relied on spinners with not many quality pacers to choose from.
Shikha Pandey, who is often the lone pacer in the playing eleven full of spinners, has the crucial task of providing early breakthroughs.
“As an opening bowler, I’m obviously thinking about the early breakthroughs and that doesn’t change,” said Pandey, India’s fifth-highest wicket-taker in T20s.
“In the first six, we are trying to take wickets and then it’s about containing the batters before coming back and bowling the best you can in the death overs.
“I would say 150 is now a par score in a T20 game, so the first six overs batters actually get a lot of freedom and try to hit as many runs as possible,” she added.
The squad is expected to reach the last four as it had two years ago but the growing women’s game in India will get a further fillip only if it goes all the way.
India will take on Australia, which could not have asked for a better build-up to the tournament. It finalised its combinations during the tri-series and is looking to triumph at home.
WHERE TO WATCH
The World Cup opener between India W and Australia W will be telecast on the Star Sports Networ k. You can also live stream the big ticket clash on Hotstar . Or you can also catch our live updates right here.
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